The Old Curiosity Shop

Synopsis

The Old Curiosity Shop is a novel written by the English writer Charles Dickens, remembered as the great novelist of Victorian era for his notable writings such as A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol, Great expectations and David Copperfield.

The Old Curiosity Shop narrates the miserable story of isolated young girl Nell Trent and her grandfather. Nell Trent at her teens loses her parents and finds shelter with her maternal grandfather who owns The Old Curiosity Shop. Though her grandfather takes great care on her, she find herself in loneliness, except befriends with Kit, a boy works at her grandfather shop.

In an effort to create wealth for providing comfortable life to Nell, her grandfather gambling cards and borrows heavily from a malicious money lender Daniel Quilp. Quilp exploits an opportunity and seizes The Old Curiosity Shop, when her grandfather wiped out his entire wealth in gambling. Nell takes her grandfather to another town for living as beggars, leaving their only asset The Old Curiosity Shop.

Nell’s distant relative persuades Dick Swiveller to marry Nell and share her wealth which would be inherited from grandfather. Quilp supports them blindly to track down Nell, though he knows Nell and her grandfather became paupers. The trio ends up hunting down their whereabouts through Kit, when he was employed in another shop. However they could see only her grandfather, not Nell. Earlier Nell’s valiant efforts saves her grandfather’s health, but at the cost of her health and ultimate death. Her grandfather unable to conceive her death still believed and was waiting till he died.

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