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According
to Dickens, Mr Daniel Quilp is a bent-over, hook-nosed dwarf,
with a "ghastly smile... appearing to be the mere result of
habit and to have no connexion with any mirthful or complacent
feeling". A cold-hearted miser and money-lending monster of
iniquity, he became landlord of the Old Curiosity Shop, after
cruelly evicting the tenants, Little Nell Trent and her destitute
grandfather. Quilp pursues the forlorn pair with unremitting
hatred, finally driving them to their torturous, exhausting
deaths.
This of course is fiction. The true Mr Quilp, upon whom Dickens
loosely based his famous story, is behind you. He is a rather
shadowy gentleman, who may sometimes appear as you wander about
The Shop. You may rest assured; he will look after you as one
of his own.
MR QUILP, aka THE IRREVEREND GAVIN BADDELEY
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A Biographical
Sketch: |
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A somewhat elusive
figure, the notoriously decadent and deviant Gavin Baddeley is something
of a dilettante. Born in England in the late 1960's, (or was it
the 1860's?), he boasts a bastard bloodline composed of clergymen,
actors, spies and whores. Baddeley followed in the family’s theological
tradition, though from a somewhat more adventurous and inquisitive
angle than convention might dictate.
Baddeley lived for some time in California, where he earned the
epithet 'Bad English.' However, he currently resides in England
where (in-between listening to pestilential music, appreciating
abstruse symbolic art and conducting research into dark histories
and the occult), he amuses himself by writing books and contributing
columns to music & media, alternative and esoteric journals, ranging
from Kerrang! and Knave, to The Observer and The Black Flame. He
has also been the subject of numerous interviews and profiles in
titles as diverse as The Guardian, The London Evening Standard and
The X-Factor.
As well as establishing a reputation as a journalist and scholar
of all things strange and sinister, Baddeley has attracted international
critical acclaim for his books, including Lucifer Rising, a study
of rock 'n roll and the demonic tradition, and the incisive cultural
autopsy, Dissecting Marilyn Manson. Baddeley's latest and eagerly
awaited book, a study of the Gothic tradition, is published by Plexus
in the spring of 2001.
Now, for his sins, Mr Baddeley has assumed the mantle of Editor,
and the ego of Mr Quilp, the proprietor of the Old Curiosity Shop,
the online gothic emporium.
May we all rest in peace! |
GAVIN
BADDELEY Alias MR QUILP
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