Little Nell

M. F. or E. M. Taylor

Photographic reproduction of line drawing

Approximately 3 inches wide x 3.5 inches high

From Dickens' Dream Children, p. 146, at the head of Mary Angela Dickens's "Little Nell and Her Grandfather," the sixth chapter.

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham

[You may use this image 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 it in one in a print medium.]

The chapter is a radically condensed version of Nell's wanderings with her profligate grandfather in The Old Curiosity Shop. The narrative does not dwell upon the pathetic death of the child as Dickens's novel does, but concludes with the parishioners' finding her grandfather lying dead upon her grave-stone. The illustration is merely a character study of the beautiful, tender-hearted child, and does not realise any particular moment in the chapter, although in her bonnet she is clearly dressed for their journey away from the only home she has ever known, the old, half-timbered curiosity shop of the novel's title. As is appropriate to a story in which the child becomes the custodian of a parent figure, the child seems unusually mature, a child-woman, so to speak.

Bibliography

Dickens, Mary Angela [Charles Dickens' grand-daughter]. Dickens' Dream Children. Illustrated by Harold Copping, E. M. Taylor, and M. F. Taylor. London, Paris New, York: Raphael Tuck & Sons, Ltd., 1926.

Last modified 14 September 2010