Includes both The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge.
The series was an experiment on Dickens’ part, who proposed to Chapman and Hall that he write a serial of loosely connected ‘essays, tales, adventures, letters from imaginary correspondents, and so forth’, to be issued in weekly parts rather than monthly, in order to keep the attention of readers more effectively. The original intention was abandoned when sales for the series began to drop off disastrously, and so by the fourth part, a novel serialisation was begun under the ‘well-known title of The Old Curiosity Shop’ (Eckel). The novel was necessarily written in a great rush, the original plans for the Clock had to be scrapped, and a new story, equivalent to Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby, made up to reach the printers before his now weekly, rather than monthly deadlines.
However, the success of the The Old Curiosity Shop is well documented, driving circulation from 70,000 to 100,000. The ending of the story was the highpoint of Victorian sentimentality (“It would take a heart of stone not to laugh” was Oscar Wilde’s response) and kept readers on tenterhooks worldwide. The ship carrying the final issue to New York was stormed at the dock by readers anxious to find whether Little Nell had survived.
Minor browning and spotting, creasing, some with wrappers expertly restored, with neat restoration at backstrip, a few with wrappers detached, some soiling to wrappers (particularly parts 7 and 32), parts 51, 60, 66, 69, 80, with three small pinholes through inner margins, parts 51 and 69 with loss to inner margin of one leaf, part 51 with more concentrated chipping including minor loss to leaves and lower wrapper.
Gimbel, A49. Eckel. Hatton. House and Storey, The Letters of Charles Dickens. Norman and Jeanne Mackenzie, Dickens A Life.
