Other Fiction Dickens, Charles: The Old Curiosity Shop (Illustrated). v7. 25 Mar 2010

[HarryT]

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.

Contains all the original black and white illustrations.

Enjoy!

EDIT: 24 Dec 07

Replaced words in capitals by italics as appropriate, to match the printed book. Created a proper MobiPocket version of the book with large images, working table of contents link, author information displayed in the library, etc. 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: 505

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[HarryT]

Replaced words in capitals by italics as appropriate, to match the printed book. Created a proper MobiPocket version of the book with large images, working table of contents link, author information displayed in the library, etc. Uploaded v3.

[HarryT]

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.

[HarryT]

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.

[HarryT]

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.

[HarryT]

Replaced the cover image for consistency with the rest of my Dickens series. No change to the text. Uploaded v7.