Natural Theology and the Revelation of Little Dorrit

For some time now, I have been fascinated by the role of the watch in Little Dorrit (1855–57). As you may recall, the timepiece is in the possession of Mrs. Clennam, and marked with the initials D. N. F. Toward the end of a fiendishly complex plot, which I cannot summarize adequately here, we discover that the watch was her late husband’s. He gave it to her in the hope that the initials, which are said to stand for “Do Not Forget,” might recall a duty-of-care to a child, not hers, conceived out of wedlock and sent away at birth. During the climactic scene of the narrative, just before we discover who that child is, Mrs. Clennam tells us about her reading of those letters: