Illustration, the Body, and the Text

I don't want to spoil my presentation for tomorrow too much (because we all know it's going to be awesome--that or everyone will be entirely too bored if I preview it now), but I came across a couple of interesting facts about the illustration history of Conversations Introducing Poetry that I wanted to toss out and see what everyone thought.  Charlotte Smith initially wanted to draw the illustrations for her children's book herself (though I don't think she'd ever attempted such a thing before).  However, by the time the book started coming together, her rheumatism had advanced so far that such an idea was out of the question.  At this point, she indirectly inquired about the possibility of retaining the services of "an ingenious Engraver who executed certain plates for a small work of Mr. Hayley's relating to Animals"--none other than William Blake, as we know.  Obviously, this didn't work out, and we're left with a Conversations that is image-less.  My questions are: what does it do to a children's book like Conversations to publish it without illustrations?  What, or how much, can be made of the fact that it was Smith's own physical limitations that at least partially prevented the book from gaining another set of paratexts (particularly for a writer who was frequently at pains to let the reader know about her personal investment in her work)?  

Finally, I wanted to share this rather wonderful quotation from Smith's correspondance, in which she's commenting on Hayley's "The Eagle" and quoting a friend, "Dear Mr. Hayley, how could you think of telling such a thing--really you do love to put Women in the most extraordinary situations."