Read-along – The Old Curiosity Shop (8 of 18)
Chapters 3-5 – and Mr. Weller's Watch
Dear Old Curiosity Shoppers,
We’ve read the eighth and ninth issues of Master Humphrey’s Clock, which included the next three chapters of The Old Curiosity Shop. What did you think? Here are my thoughts:
Here are the details of the next two instalments, which we’ll discuss in two weeks’ time on Friday 20 June:
No.10 (6 June)
– ‘The Old Curiosity Shop, Chapter the Sixth’
– ‘The Old Curiosity Shop, Chapter the Seventh’
No.11 (13 June)
– ‘The Old Curiosity Shop, Chapter the Eighth’
– ‘Master Humphrey, from his Clock-Side in the Chimney Corner’
(If you don’t have a physical copy of Master Humphrey’s Clock you can read ‘Master Humphrey, from his Clock-Side in the Chimney Corner’ here. Stop at the line, ‘the infant Tony was rather intoxicated’.)
This instalment introduces us to perhaps the most memorable character in The Old Curiosity Shop and one of Dickens’s most monstrous creations: Daniel Quilp, ‘a man of remarkably hard features and forbidding aspect, and so low in stature as to be quite a dwarf, though his head and face were large enough for the body of a giant.’
Quilp is grotesquely cruel, but he is also mesmerising in his energy and excess:
. . . he ate hard eggs, shell and all, devoured gigantic prawns with the heads and tails on, chewed tobacco and water-cresses at the same time and with extraordinary greediness, drank boiling tea without winking, bit his fork and spoon till they bent again, and in short performed so many horrifying and uncommon acts that the women were nearly frightened out of their wits, and began to doubt if he were really a human creature . . .
Quilp was, according to Wilfred P. Dvorak, ‘inspired by a “frightful little dwarf named Prior” whom Dickens met on a visit to Bath (February-March 1840).’
Dvorak goes on to argue that Dickens gave Quilp the traits of ‘a number of Shakespearean villains’:
Thus there are echoes of Shakespeares’ Richard III in Quilp’s hunchbacked villainy, and his sexual preoccupations and jealousy suggest Iago and Othello as well. Still, the most intriguing role Quilp takes on is that of a perverse, comic Macbeth. . . . Like Macbeth, Quilp is terribly overambitious and violent . . . and progressively he is able to force or to convince others to support him in his evil deeds.
In 1975, the Reader’s Digest film department attempted to replicate the success of Oliver!, the Oscar-winning 1968 film of Lionel Bart’s musical adaptation of Oliver Twist: they made a musical film of The Old Curiosity Shop.
It was not well reviewed, but it’s a good illustration of how Quilp comes to dominate the story: Quilp is the main character in the musical, played by the movie’s biggest star, Anthony Newley, and the film was released in the US under the title Mr. Quilp.
Here is the song in which Newley introduces Quilp to viewers in flamboyant music-hall style, complete with jazz hands and vigorous gurning:
Quilp is certainly one of Dickens’s most inspired and terrifying creations and I think we’re going to enjoy discussing his career over the coming months.
To being with, I look forward to reading the next three chapters of The Old Curiosity Shop (6-8) and discussing them along with ‘Master Humphrey, from his Clock-Side in the Chimney Corner’ in two weeks’ time, on Friday 20 June.
Here are links to our previous Old Curiosity Shop posts:
The Schedule (14 March 2025)
Charles Dickens (28 March)
0. Forster’s Life of Dickens (4 April)
1. Master Humphrey’s Clock No.1 – and Gog and Magog (11 April)
2. Master Humphrey’s Clock No.2 – and G. K. Chesterton (18 April)
3. Master Humphrey’s Clock No.3 – and Edgar Allan Poe (25 April)
4. Master Humphrey’s Clock No.4 – and the Old Curiosity Shop (2 May)
6. Master Humphrey’s Clock No.6 – and St. Dunstan-in-the-West (16 May)
7. Master Humphrey’s Clock No.7 – and Jack Bamber’s tale (23 May)
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Daniel Quilp - perhaps the only man who can maker Uriah Heep seem an attractive proposition. Dickens really does manage to make him seem totally sinister even before we get to the really creepy side of him. I think it's partly that we don't know what he does or his connections to Little Nell's family, but we can see the power he has over them.
The conversation between the women is (almost) a delight. We see the women scoring points off each other and it is rather funny (you'd want to cast good comic actors for that), but the sense of menace is still there, and that takes the edge off it a bit.
As it moves to Quilps's workplace, it becomes a bit blurry. The young lad (did I miss his name?) doesn't really seem that bothered by Quilp, and goes back to standing on his hands. Even though Quilp is violent towards him, the boy seems almost able to shrug it off. Somehow, I don't think he will be one to provide any help if Quilp finds himself in trouble. (And the same goes for Mrs Quilp, her mother and, probably, everybody else.)
What I'm finding interesting about the book is that, up to now, we've had a lot of atmosphere but not really a lot of plot - although I'd bet that a lot of the groundwork is being laid for the plotlines. Money, I would hazard a guess, is going to be a significant factor.
And, yes, I'm desperate to know why Little Nell has turned up!
This continues to be in David Lean black and white to me (and I say that as a definite positive).
Growing up I loved a miniseries adaptation of this novel where the grandfather was played by Sir Peter Ustinov and Quilp by Tom Courtenay. I can’t help but hear his voice while I read and I was surprised to recognize some of the screen dialogue actually came straight from the book. In that series the acrobatic crony scared me a bit and that sense of unease about his walking on his hands remains for me on this first read nearly 20 years later…