An English writer and social critic Charles Dickens created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. Dickens's literary success began with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers. Within a few years, he had become an international literary celebrity, famous for his humour, satire, and keen observation of character and society. The novel The Old Curiosity Shop was published in instalments in the periodical Master Humphrey’s Clock. The Old Curiosity Shop was printed in book form in 1841. It was the fourth novel of Charles Dickens. Little Nell Trent lives in the quiet gloom of the old curiosity shop with her ailing grandfather, for whom she cares with selfless devotion. But when they are unable to pay their debts to the stunted, lecherous and demonic money-lender Daniel Quilp, the shop is seized and they are forced to flee, thrown into a shadowy world in which there seems to be no safe haven. She gradually becomes weaker throughout the journey, and although she finds a home with the help of the schoolmaster, she sickens and dies before her friends in London find her. Oscar Wilde said about this novel that "One would have to have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without dissolving into tears...of laughter." Listen online to free English audiobook "The Old Curiosity Shop” on our website to experience the fourth Dickens's major novel.
