"Quilp watches Nell comforting her Grandfather" — Furniss's sixth illustration for Dickens's "The Old Curiosity Shop" (1910)

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Quilp watches Nell comforting her Grandfather

The old man covered his face with his hands, and hid it in the pillow of the couch on which he lay, while the child passed an arm around his neck. Quilp, fantastic and monkey-like, sat on the back of a chair, one leg cocked over the other, his chin resting on the palm of his hand.

Harry Furniss

1910

14.2 x 9.2 cm, vignetted

Dickens's The Old Curiosity Shop, The Charles Dickens Library Edition, facing V, 64.

[Click on image to enlarge it.]

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

[You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image, and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Passage Illustrated: A Grotesque

"Nelly!" said the old man.

"Yes, yes, rather than live as we do now," the child repeated, more earnestly than before. "If you are sorrowful, let me know why and be sorrowful too; if you waste away and are paler and weaker every day, let me be your nurse and try to comfort you. If you are poor, let us be poor together; but let me be with you, do let me be with you; do not let me see such change and not know why, or I shall break my heart and die. Dear grandfather, let us leave this sad place to-morrow, and beg our way from door to door."

The old man covered his face with his hands, and hid it in the pillow of the couch on which he lay.

"Let us be beggars," said the child passing an arm round his neck, "I have no fear but we shall have enough, I am sure we shall. Let us walk through country places, and sleep in fields and under trees, and never think of money again, or anything that can make you sad, but rest at nights, and have the sun and wind upon our faces in the day, and thank God together! Let us never set foot in dark rooms or melancholy houses, any more, but wander up and down wherever we like to go; and when you are tired, you shall stop to rest in the pleasantest place that we can find, and I will go and beg for both."

The child’s voice was lost in sobs as she dropped upon the old man’s neck; nor did she weep alone. [Chapter IX, 70]

Related Material about The Old Curiosity Shop

Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. V.

Created 4 May 2020

Last modified 27 November 2020