The Old Curiosity Shop

This was a weird one for me.

It has a lot of the usual Dickens trappings that I love - there's a clear do-no-wrong goodie, and a mean ol' baddie, the turn-of-phrase is spot on. But there's something off about it.

Nell lives with her grandfather, a gambler who loses their money to Daniel Quilp, a money lender. They flee from London as beggars, meeting the occasional friend on the road. Nell's older brother Frederick believes the grandfather has a fortune for Nell, and enlists pal Dick Swiveller to find them, and for the latter to marry Nell so they can share the money, joined by Quilp. The serial nature is strong in this episodic story, as each chapter has a new meeting for the travellers, or a new plot by their pursuers.

You read that right by the way, that guy's name is Dick Swiveller. That has to be a joke right? He plans to marry Nell, who's only 13. I had to remind myself that while despicable in 2026, it was very common in this uneducated and unaware age.

I have a problem with the depiction of the villain of the piece as well. Quilp is a violent, brutish, man with dwarfism (again, not a diagnosis of the times). While he's certainly a malicious, horrible man, the descriptions do stray into ableism at times. And I wonder if we're in a dangerous pattern of using negative stereotypes of oppressed people for our baddies, like with the Jewish Fagin's treatment in Oliver Twist.

That said, I found the Nell's grandfather's ruin at the hands of a gambling addiction to be heart-breakingly tragic, and not something I've seen in these works before. There's something in there, I'm certain, but it wouldn't be the Dickens book I'd recommend for a first-timer. Also, after the first few chapters they actually spend very little time in the titular shop.