Perhaps
the first thing you notice when you read The
Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens is how
little of it has to do with an old curiosity shop. The opening scenes are set
in the shop, a place full of old antiques, curiosities, and junk, or “junque.” References
will appear later in the sprawling tale, but they are fleeting.
Slowly you
begin to understand that what Dickens wrote here was a road trip.
The Old Curiosity Shop was Dickens’ fourth work of
fiction. He began to be known with his stories published in newspapers and
periodicals, later collected as Sketches
by Boz. Almost all of his fictional works were first serialized before
being published as books. The
Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, or simply, The Pickwick Papers, were published over 18 months from 1836 to
1837, and the work catapulted the author to national fame.
That was
followed by Oliver
Twist (1837 to 1839) and Nicholas
Nickleby (1838 to 1839). Dickens’ fame was growing in Britain and the United
States. The overlap in his published serials demonstrates the demand for his
work – people were reading Oliver Twist
as Nicholas Nickleby began to be
published. He was riding the rising tide of literacy in both Britain and the
U.S. His characters captured recognizable types, and he was equally at home
with humor, tragedy, violence, and even farce.
To
continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak
Poetry.
Top photograph: Little Nell and her grandfather begin their journey in The Old Curiosity Shop.
No comments:
Post a Comment