The Old Curiosity Shop

Nell Trent lives with her grandfather in his London curiosity shop, unaware that his desperate gambling is intended to secure her future. His debts place them under the power of the malicious moneylender Daniel Quilp, and the pair flee the city after losing their home. Their journey through towns, villages and industrial landscapes brings temporary refuge but cannot free Nell from exhaustion and anxiety.

Their story is balanced by the comic adventures of Dick Swiveller, the exploited servant known as the Marchioness and the scheming Brass household. Dickens combines melodrama, humour and social observation in a novel about childhood vulnerability, gambling, debt and the insecurity faced by people without money or legal protection.