The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41) with its combination of the sentimental the grotesque & the socially concerned & its story of pursuit & courage which sets the downtrodden & the plucky against the malevolent & the villainous was an immediate popular success. Little Nell quickly became one of Dickens' most celebrated characters who so captured the imagination of his readers that while the novel was being serialised many of them wrote to him about her fate. Dickens was conscious of the 'many friends' the novel had won for him & 'the many hearts it turned to me when they were full of private sorrow' & it remains one of the most familiar & well-loved of his works.