WOOD ENGRAVING – “LITTLE NELL AND HER GRANDFATHER” drawn by J. P. Davis, and engraved by S. Eytinge.  The engraving was inspired by Charles Dickens book The Old Curiosity Shop.  This engraving was published in 1870, and is in very good condition.  It measures 11 ¾” x 8 7/8”, and is matted to 16” x 20” for easy framing.

       Though Dickens peopled literature with hundreds of successful characters after creating Little Nell, the heroine of “The Old Curiosity Shop” has never lost her place in the heart of popular estimation. Her touching story has a freshness and a spiritual beauty which have not diminished through the process of time.  How many men and books, and enterprises of pith and moment, have passed away and been forgotten during those thirty years in which we have not for a day forgotten” Little Nell”!  We turn over the old pages with refreshed delight. The dust that filled up the carven names on thousands of gravestones has not obliterated hers. “Little Nell” was a favorite with the author. “I have a mournful pride,” says Mr. Dickens, in the preface to “The old Curiosity Shop,”   “In one recollection associated with “Little Nell.” While she was yet upon her wanderings, not then concluded, there appeared in a literary journal as essay of which she was the principal theme, so earnestly, so eloquently and tenderly appreciative of her and of all her shadowy kith and kin, that it would have been insensibility in me, if I could have read it without an unusual glow of pleasure and encouragement. Long afterwards, and when I had come to know him well, and to see him stout of heart going slowly down into his grave, I knew the writer of that essay to be Thomas Hood.”

       “‘There was a pool of clear water in the field, in which the child laved her hands and face, and cooled her feet, before setting forth to walk again. She would have the old man refresh himself in this way too, and, making him sit down upon the grass, cast the water on him with her hands, and dried it with her simple dress.

       “‘I can do nothing for my self, my darling,’ said the grandfather. ‘I don’t know how it is I could once, but the time’s gone. Don’t leave me, Nell; say that thou’lt not leave me. I loved thee all the while, indeed I did. If I lose thee too, my dear, I must die!’

       “He laid his head upon her shoulder, and moaned piteously. The time had been, and a very few days before, when the child could not have restrained her tears and must have wept with him. But now she soothed him with gentle and tender words, smiled at his thinking they could ever part, and rallied him cheerfully up - on the jest. He was soon calmed and fell asleep, singing to himself in a low voice, like a little child,” - The Old Curiosity Shop - Vol I. PP. 123, Library Edition of Charles Dickens’s Works.

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