I have a page of sketches from 7th grade of characters from Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities . I show it as part of my school visit presentation. Our literature text book had no pictures. My illustration-deprived classmates were excited by my drawings of Madame De Farge and others in the story. That reaction was one of my motivators to become an illustrator. I googled "underrated Dickens novels". The Old Curiosity Shop is an early novel, written serially. Dickens' early characters were black and white, not as nuanced as in his later books. It's the story of Nell, on the edge of maturity, whose grandfather is a gambling addict. Nell gets Grandfather out of town to flee the clutches of the evil money lender Daniel Quilp. Nell is the angel of the story. I've suggested a halo with her bonnet. Daniel Quilp, who has no redeeming qualities, appears in his wharf shack surrounded by smoke from a faulty chimne...
