From Amazon:
A bestseller that gripped the nation when it was first published, "The Old Curiosity Shop" is a novel of sharp contrasts: of life and death, youth and age, desire and innocence, humour and villainy. For the character of Little Nell, the beautiful child thrown into a shadowy, terrifying world, Dickens drew on a tragedy in his own life, the death at the age of 17 of his sister-in-law Mary Hogarth. Five years later he wrote, "the desire to be buried next her is as strong upon me now ... and I know (for I don't think there ever was love like that I bear her) that it will never diminish."
The sorrows of Nell and her grandfather are offset by Dickens's creation of a dazzling contemporary world inhabited by some of his most brilliantly drawn characters--the eloquent ne-er-do-well Dick Swiveller; the hungry maid known as the "Marchioness"; the mannish lawyer Sally Brass; Quilp's brow-beaten mother-in-law, and Quilp himself, the lustful, vengeful dwarf, whose demonic energy makes a vivid counterpoint to Nell's purity.
The edition contains all the original black and white illustrations (hence the rather large size of the book).
Enjoy!
EDIT: 15 Dec 07
Recreated the book, adding the original illustrations and preserving dashes, etc. Uploaded v2.
EDIT: 24 Dec 07
Replaced words in capitals by italics as appropriate, to match the printed book. Uploaded v3.
EDIT: 20 Mar 08
Recreated the book to sort out a problem with incorrect paragraph graph. Comparing against the printed book I noticed that two illustrations were missing, so I've scanned these and added them to the book. Uploaded v4.
EDIT: 12 Mar 09
Spent the last two months painstakingly proof-reading the book against the "Oxford Illustrated Dickens" edition. Two entire double-pages of text were missing from the book, as well as literally thousands of other minor errors and omissions. I would say that the book is probably now pretty much as good as it's going to get, although I would obviously welcome being informed of any remaining errors. Added a new cover image, too, and uploaded v5.
EDIT: 11 Jun 09
MR user "dynabook" has kindly sent me details of several dozen errors (primarily in punctuation) which I'd overlooked. Corrected all these, and uploaded a new v6.
EDIT: 25 Mar 10
Replaced the cover image for consistency with the rest of my Dickens series. No change to the text. Uploaded v7.
Previous download count: 763
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