On a blustery winter afternoon in 1840, crowds flooded the docks of the New York and Boston harbors. For months, Victorian audiences had followed the orphan Little Nell's adventures in Charles Dickens'The Old Curiosity Shop as she and her beloved grandfather fled the moral and material ravages of London and the machinations of the villainous dwarf, Quilp. Calling wildly to the English ship carrying the next installment of The Old Curiosity Shop, the devoted readers breathlessly demanded the fate of the novel's heroine.

For today's reader, The Old CuriosityShop not only illustrates a poverty that looks uncannily familiar, but forges a heroism from the small acts of caring that make modern life meaningful. The most popular of Dickens' novels in his lifetime, it remains both a page-turner and a masterpiece.