the dogsbody of the notary Mr. Witherden, who employs Mr. Abel Garland. He takes a strong dislike to Kit after Mr. Garland overpays Kit for a job and Kit returns to work off the difference; he shows his dislike at every opportunity, calling Kit 'Snobby'.
- Mr. Marton, a poor schoolmaster. He befriends Nell and later inadvertently meets her and her Grandfather on the roads. Nell approaches him to beg for alms, not realising who he is. She faints from a combination of shock and exhaustion, and, realising she is ill, he takes her to an inn and pays for the doctor, and then takes her and her grandfather to live with him in the distant village where he has been appointed parish clerk.
- Thomas Codlin, proprietor of a travelling Punch and Judy show.
- Mr. Harris, called 'Short Trotters', the puppeteer of the Punch and Judy show.
- Barbara, the maidservant of Mr. and Mrs. Garland and future wife of Kit.
- The Bachelor, brother of Mr. Garland. Lives in the village where Nell and her grandfather end their journey, and unknowingly alerts his brother of their presence through a letter.
Literary significance and criticism
Probably the most widely-repeated criticism of Dickens is the remark reputedly made by Oscar Wilde that 'One would have to have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without dissolving into tears...of laughter.' (Nell's deathbed is not actually described, however.) Of a similar opinion was the poet Algernon Swinburne, who called Nell "a monster as inhuman as a baby with two heads."
The Irish leader Daniel O'Connell famously burst into tears at the finale, and threw the book out of the window of the train in which he was travelling.
The hype surrounding the conclusion of the series was unprecedented; Dickens fans were reported to storm the piers of New York City, shouting to arriving sailors (who might have already read the last instalment in the United Kingdom), "Is Little Nell alive?" In 2007, many newspapers claimed the excitement at the release of the last volume The Old Curiosity Shop was the only historical comparison that could be made to the excitement at the release of the last Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
The Norwegian author Ingeborg Refling Hagen is said to have buried a copy of the book in her youth, stating that nobody deserved to read about Nell, because nobody would ever understand her pain. She compared herself to Nell, because of her own miserable situation at the time.
Allusions to actual history, geography
A shop named 'The Old Curiosity Shop' can be found at 13–14 Portsmouth Street, Westminster, London, WC2A 2ES, in amongst the London School of Economics. The building dates back to the sixteenth century, but this name was added after the novel was released, as it was thought to be the inspiration for Dickens' description of the antique shop. At one time it functioned as a dairy on an estate given by King Charles II to one of his many mistresses. It was made using the wood from old ships and the building survived the bombs of Second World War. There is also a shop in Broadstairs called The Old Curiosity Shop, where Dickens rented a home.
Nell and her Grandfather meet Codlin and Short in a Churchyard in Aylesbury. The Races where Nell and her Grandfather go to with the show people are at Banbury. The village where they first meet the schoolmaster is Warmington, Warwickshire. They meet Mrs. Jarley near the village of Gaydon, Warwickshire. The town where they work at Jarley's Waxworks is Warwick. The heavily industrialised town where Nell spends the night by the furnace is Birmingham, after they have travelled on the Warwick and Birmingham Canal. The town in which Nell faints and is rescued by the school master is Wolverhampton in the Black Country. The village where they finally find peace and rest and where Nell dies is Tong, Shropshire.
Other real locations used in the novel include London Bridge, Bevis Marks, Finchley, and Minster-on-Sea.
- There were several silent film adaptations of the novel including two directed by Thomad Bently:
- The Old Curiosity