Topsy with Miss Ophelia's Wardrobe
George Cruikshank, 1792-1878
1852
Wood-engraving
12.9 x 9.5 cm
Seventeenth illustration, facing page 214, for Chapter 20, "Topsy," in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly (1852) with twenty-seven illustrations by George Cruikshank.
Topsy, one of the novel's most memorable characters, has contributed a well-known expression to the English language: "it growe'd like Topsy" has become a popular figure of speech to describe something that grew or increased by itself, without apparent design or divine intervention.
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.