The Old Curiosity Shop (Penguin English Library El75)

The Old Curiosity Shop (Penguin English Library El75) by Dickens, Charles. mass_market edition. ISBN: 9780140430752.

For the character of Little Nell, the beautiful child thrown into a shadowy, terrifying world, Dickens drew on a tragedy in his own life, the death at the age of seventeen of his sister-in-law Mary Hogarth. Five years later he wrote, the desire to be buried next her is as strong upon me now ... and I know (for I dont think there ever was love like that I bear her) that it will never diminish.