內容簡介

Charles Dickens’s story of selfless Little Nell and her ailing grandfather and their persecution by the magnificently malignant villain Quilp has seized the imaginations and wrung the hearts of generations of readers.

Dickens’s talent was superabundant in every way: in his dramatic force and his massive productivity, in his almost surreal comic power, in his compassion and thirst for justice, and in the imaginative pressure he brought to bear on even the most incidental of his characters. The delightfully various figures in The Old Curiosity Shop range memorably from jaunty Dick Swiveller and his little half-starved Marchioness to the hard-hearted siblings Sampson and Sally Brass, jovial Mrs. Jarley, devoted Kit Nubbles, the hunchbacked Daniel Quilp, and, of course, tragic Little Nell herself. Dickens’s depiction of the fate of his main characters is famously harrowing and unfailingly suspenseful, but not the least of its charms is that it is embellished with a supporting cast of figures as grotesque and colorful as anything in the Old Curiosity Shop itself.
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This edition reprints the original Everyman’s preface by G. K. Chesterton and features seventy-five illustrations by Cattermole and Phiz.

狄更斯1812年齣生於英國樸次茅斯，是海軍職員約翰·狄更斯和伊麗莎白·巴洛所生的第二個孩子。狄更斯5歲時全傢就遷居占鬆，10歲時又搬到康登鎮（今屬倫敦）。

狄更斯神作，被低估的作品。

　　我倒是很高興，我素來不愛遠距離的散步，特彆是在寒冷的下午。對我來說，在陰冷的黃昏迴傢實在可怕，手指和腳趾都凍僵瞭，還得聽保姆白茜的責罵，弄得心裏很不痛快，而且自己覺得體質不如伊麗莎、約翰和喬奇安娜·裏德，又感到低人一等。

　　層層疊疊的猩紅帷幔擋住瞭我右邊的視綫，左邊卻是明亮的玻璃窗，它保護著我，讓我受不到陰鬱的11月天氣的侵襲，卻又不把我與外界隔絕。在翻書頁的當兒，我偶爾眺望一下鼕日午後的景色。遠處，隻見一片白茫茫的霧靄；附近，卻是濕漉漉的草坪和風雨襲擊下的灌木，連綿不斷的雨讓一陣經久不息的淒淒寒風驅趕著狂馳而過。

狄更斯早年傢境小康，小時候曾經在一所私立學校接受過一段時間的教育，但是父母經常大宴賓客，金錢上沒有節製，12歲時，狄更斯的父親就因債務問題而入獄，一傢人隨著父親遷至牢房居住，狄更斯也因此被送到倫敦一傢鞋油場當學徒，每天工作10個小時。或許是由於這段經曆，備嘗艱辛、屈辱，看盡人情冷暖，使得狄更斯的作品更關注底層社會勞動人民的生活狀態。小說《大衛·科波菲爾》中，就是描寫瞭自己這一段遭遇。

那一天不可能去散步瞭。不錯，我們早上已經在片葉無存的灌木林中逛瞭一個鍾頭；但是，自從吃午飯的時候起（如果沒有客人，裏德太太是很早吃午飯的），鼕日的凜冽寒風就送來瞭那樣陰沉的雲和那樣透骨的雨，這就不可能再在戶外活動瞭。

狄更斯神作，被低估的作品。

彆人推薦的書，很不錯，值得看

　　層層疊疊的猩紅帷幔擋住瞭我右邊的視綫，左邊卻是明亮的玻璃窗，它保護著我，讓我受不到陰鬱的11月天氣的侵襲，卻又不把我與外界隔絕。在翻書頁的當兒，我偶爾眺望一下鼕日午後的景色。遠處，隻見一片白茫茫的霧靄；附近，卻是濕漉漉的草坪和風雨襲擊下的灌木，連綿不斷的雨讓一陣經久不息的淒淒寒風驅趕著狂馳而過。