"She turned to the old man with a lovely smile upon her face." — Thomas Worth's fifty-third illustration for Dickens's "The Old Curiosity Shop" (1872)

She turned to the old man with a lovely smile upon her face. Chapter LXXII of Dickens's Old Curiosity Shop by Thomas Worth in the first Household Edition volume published by Harper & Bros., New York (1872), 227: 4 ¼ x 5 ⅜ inches (10.7 x 13.7 cm) framed. [Click on image to enlarge it.]

Context of the Illustration: The Famous Scene of Nell's Death

She had been dead two days. They were all about her at the time, knowing that the end was drawing on. She died soon after daybreak. They had read and talked to her in the earlier portion of the night, but as the hours crept on, she sunk to sleep. They could tell, by what she faintly uttered in her dreams, that they were of her journeyings with the old man; they were of no painful scenes, but of people who had helped and used them kindly, for she often said ‘God bless you!’ with great fervour. Waking, she never wandered in her mind but once, and that was of beautiful music which she said was in the air. God knows. It may have been.

Opening her eyes at last, from a very quiet sleep, she begged that they would kiss her once again. That done, she turned to the old man with a lovely smile upon her face — such, they said, as they had never seen, and never could forget—and clung with both her arms about his neck. They did not know that she was dead, at first. [Chapter LXXII, 226]

Related Material about The Old Curiosity Shop

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 the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Thomas Worth. The Household Edition. 16 vols. New York: Harper & Bros., 1872. I.

Created 4 May 2020

Last modified 26 November 2020