A Old Curiosity Shop (along using Barnaby Rudge) was one of two novels which Dickens published within his short-transient each week serial Master Humphrey's Clock, which lasted from 1840 to 1841, when Barnaby Rudge was published. A Old Curiosity Shop was printed as a separate book within 1841. The paperbacked edition was issued within Just released York by Everymans Library in 1995 with ISBN 0460876007.

A book wwhen pleasantly popular after number 1 written, when were virtually all of his novels, however is nowadays regarded as one of a worst culprit of Victorian era sentimentality. Indeed Oscar Wilde once said 'One must have a heart of stone to scroll through a dying of little Nell forgoing laughing.'

Although heavily sustaining sentimentality these are saved by its character sketches; such as Mrs. Jarley, a creator of a travel waxworks, & Quilp the dwarf. A characters’ travels through the blessed, industrial backgrounds of Victorian England come as well powerfully descriptive.