Sunday, February 23, 2025 1pm to 12am
About this Event
For six months, we will focus on one of Dickens's most intriguing novels, The Old Curiosity Shop, which contains such memorable characters as Dick Swiveller, Samson and Sally Brass, Little Nell, and the grotesque, violent dwarf, Quilp. It is probably Dickens's first novel of the city, where the urban environment becomes character, setting, and theme. Its picaresque roots make it an adventure story as well as an allegory of moral journey; its interest in the urban landscape, its pleasures and dangers, suggest Dickens's social concerns.
Recommended Edition: We recommend the Penguin Classics edition of the novel for its appendices and notes, but other versions are fine. First-time readers should avoid the Introduction if they don't want spoilers. Download the novel to read at Gutenburg.org or listen to it at LibriVox.org.
The Santa Cruz Pickwick (Book) Club, a branch of the Dickens Fellowship, is a community of local bookworms, students, and teachers who meet monthly to discuss a nineteenth-century novel. The Santa Cruz Public Libraries provide support for the reading group.
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