The Old Curiosity Shop

The Old Curiosity Shop (Charles Dickens) is set up as one continuous listen: cover, runtime, and a chapter list on the same page.

The sensational bestselling story of Little Nell, the lyrical child thrown into a shadowy, terrifying world, seems to belong less to the history of the Victorian novel than to folklore, fairy tale, or myth. The sorrows of Nell and her grandfather are offset by Dickens’s creation of a dazzling contemporary world inhabited by some of his most brilliantly drawn characters—the eloquent ne’er-do-well Dick Swiveller; the hungry maid known as the “Marchioness”; the mannish lawyer Sally Brass; Quilp’s brow-beaten mother-in-law; and Quilp himself, the lustful, vengeful dwarf, whose demonic energy makes a vivid counterpoint to Nell’s purity.

That is the whole offer: the full recording, a chapter index, and a player that does not ask you to sign up.