The Old Curiosity Shop
The supreme conjuror Charles Dickens weaves his magic spell
Peter Conrad reminds us how the skilled stage performer, always yearning for enchantment, even introduced a few disguised magic tricks into his fiction
Dickens’s London is more elusive than the artful dodger himself
Admirers of the novels have always enjoyed identifying their settings where possible, but Dickens’s old haunts are now mainly glimpsed in street names or blue plaques
