Nell by J. Clayton Clarke ("Kyd") for the watercolour series (1910): reproduced on John Player cigarette card no. 25: Ninety-two Characters from Dickens: The Old Curiosity Shop. 2 ½ inches high by 1 ¼ inches wide (6.3 cm high by 3.3 cm wide). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
NELL (The Old Curiosity Shop)
An ideal creation — a gentle, pure-spirited, fearless child, guardian-angel to her wandering, irresponsible grandfather, and ever moving in his company through thronging groups of grotesque shadows towards the silent, dreamless, last long sleep of all — the sleep of death. [Verso of Card No. 25]
Passage Illustrated: The Innocent Nell Trent carrying a basket and a bouquet of flowers
Brigden's 1978 redrafting of Kyd's original illustration, Little Nell.
And now they had come to the time when they must beg their bread. Soon after sunrise in the morning she stole out from the tent, and rambling into some fields at a short distance, plucked a few wild roses and such humble flowers, purposing to make them into little nosegays and offer them to the ladies in the carriages when the company arrived. Her thoughts were not idle while she was thus employed; when she returned and was seated beside the old man in one corner of the tent, tying her flowers together, while the two men lay dozing in another corner, she plucked him by the sleeve, and slightly glancing towards them, said, in a low voice —
‘Grandfather, don’t look at those I talk of, and don’t seem as if I spoke of anything but what I am about. What was that you told me before we left the old house? That if they knew what we were going to do, they would say that you were mad, and part us?’
The old man turned to her with an aspect of wild terror; but she checked him by a look, and bidding him hold some flowers while she tied them up, and so bringing her lips closer to his ear, said —
‘I know that was what you told me. You needn’t speak, dear. I recollect it very well. It was not likely that I should forget it. Grandfather, these men suspect that we have secretly left our friends, and mean to carry us before some gentleman and have us taken care of and sent back. If you let your hand tremble so, we can never get away from them, but if you’re only quiet now, we shall do so, easily.’
‘How?’ muttered the old man. ‘Dear Nelly, how? They will shut me up in a stone room, dark and cold, and chain me up to the wall, Nell — flog me with whips, and never let me see thee more!’
‘You’re trembling again,’ said the child. ‘Keep close to me all day. Never mind them, don’t look at them, but me. I shall find a time when we can steal away. When I do, mind you come with me, and do not stop or speak a word. Hush! That’s all.’
‘Halloa! what are you up to, my dear?’ said Mr. Codlin, raising his head, and yawning. Then observing that his companion was fast asleep, he added in an earnest whisper, ‘Codlin’s the friend, remember — not Short.’
‘Making some nosegays,’ the child replied; ‘I am going to try and sell some, these three days of the races. Will you have one — as a present I mean?’ [Chapter XIX, pp. 198-199]
Commentary: The Literary Heroine That Made Dickens a Superstar in America
Surprisingly, some of the other significant characters, including Nancy and Rose Maylie, are not among the first set of fifty characters, in which Kyd exhibits a strong male bias, as he realizes only seven female characters: the much-loved Nell Trent, the abrasive Sally Brass, and the quirky Marchioness from The Old Curiosity Shop from Master Humphrey's Clock (25 April 1840 through 6 February 1841), the comic nurse Sairey Gamp from Martin Chuzzlewit, Aunt Betsey Trotwood from David Copperfield, the burly Mrs. McStinger from Dombey and Son, and the awkward Fanny Squeers from Nicholas Nickleby appear in the essentially comic cavalcade. Although the popular taste in "characters from Dickens" as well as in "novels from Dickens" has changed markedly over the past century, reasonably educated readers would still associate the fictional character of "Little Nell" with Dickens, although perhaps not specifically as the central character of his 1840-41 novel The Old Curiosity Shop, although they might well recognize the death of this innocent as the locus classicus of Victorian sentimentality, and may well have encountered in isolation George Cattermole's famous illustration At Rest (Nell Dead) from the 30 January 1841 serial instalment in Master Humphrey's Clock. The sentimental theme of the persecuted child seeking rest among the graves of the country churchyard, far removed from the worries of the metropolis, is also the subject of Felix Octavius Carr Darley's Little Nell and her Grandfather, from The Old Curiosity Shop in his Character Sketches from Dickens (1888).
Studies of Little Nell by Other Illustrators (1840-1910)
Left: Phiz's representation of Little Nell and her grandfather in the countryside: A rest by the Way; or, Little Nell and Her Grandfather Looking back on London (11 July 1840). Centre: Harry Furniss's study of Nell and her grandfather, resting by the wayside, in The Wanderers in Chapter XV (1910). Right: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s frontispiece for the 1867 Diamond Edition volume, Little Nell and Her Grandfather (Chapter XV).
Other Artists' Conceptions of The Churchyard Scene (1840 & 1872)
Left: Phiz's caricatural style hardly flatters the Punch-and-Judy performers, even though the text underscores their affability: Punch in the Churchyard (Part Ten: 11 July 1840). Right: Worth's more prosaic Household Edition illustration establishes the ill-kempt natures of Codlin and Short in Nelly was soon engaged in her task (1872).
Relevant Illustrations from the 1861 and 1888 editions by Darley
- O. C. Darley's Little Nell and her Grandfather (1888)
- O. C. Darley's "Do I love thee, Nell," said he; "say do I love thee, Nell, or not?" (Frontispiece, Vol. 1, 1861)
- O. C. Darley's The Fugitives (Frontispiece, Vol. 2, 1861)
Other Artists' Illustrations for Dickens's The Old Curiosity Shop (1841-1924)
- George Cattermole (13 plates selected)
- Hablot Knight Browne (61 wood-engravings)
- Felix O. C. Darley (4 photogravure plates)
- Sol Eytinge, Jr. (8 wood engravings)
- Thomas Worth (47 wood engravings)
- W. H. C. Groome (9 lithographs)
- Harry Furniss (31 lithographs plus engraved title)
- Harold Copping (2 chromolithographs selected)
Scanned images 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 whp scanned them and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography: Illustrated Editions of The Old Curiosity Shop
Brigden, C. A. T. “Little Nell.” The Characters from Charles Dickens as depicted by Kyd. Rochester, Kent: John Hallewell, 1978. Page 13.
The Characters of Charles Dickens pourtrayed in a series of original watercolours by “Kyd.” London, Paris, and New York: Raphael Tuck & Sons, nd.
Dickens, Charles. The Old Curiosity Shop in Master Humphrey's Clock. Illustrated by Phiz, George Cattermole, Samuel Williams, and Daniel Maclise. 3 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1841; rpt., Bradbury and Evans, 1849.
_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Frontispieces by Felix Octavius Carr Darley and Sir John Gilbert. The Household Edition. 55 vols. New York: Sheldon & Co., 1863. 4 vols.
_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. XII.
_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Thomas Worth. The Household Edition. New York: Harper & Bros., 1872. I.
_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Charles Green. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1876. XII.
_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. With nineteen steel-plate illustrations from original wood-engravings by Phiz and George Cattermole. 2 vols. "New Illustrated Library Edition" of the Works of Charles Dickens. New York: Hurd and Houghton; Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1876. Vols. VI and VII.
_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by William H. C. Groome. The Collins' Clear-Type Edition. Glasgow & London: Collins, 1900.
_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book, 1910. V.
Hammerton, J. A. "XIII. The Old Curiosity Shop." The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book, 1910. XVII, 170-211.
Vann, J. Don. "The Old Curiosity Shop in Master Humphrey's Clock, 25 April 1840-6 February 1841." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. 64-65.
Created 7January 2015
Last updated 14 July 2025