diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.19.2.txt b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.19.2.txt
index cafbdb731f494..d061f10eacc60 100644
--- a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.19.2.txt
+++ b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.19.2.txt
@@ -67,6 +67,7 @@ Bug Fixes
 
 
 - Bug in ``pd.read_csv()`` in which the ``dtype`` parameter was not being respected for empty data (:issue:`14712`)
+- Bug in ``pd.read_csv()`` in which the ``nrows`` parameter was not being respected for large input when using the C engine for parsing (:issue:`7626`)
 
 
 
diff --git a/pandas/io/tests/parser/c_parser_only.py b/pandas/io/tests/parser/c_parser_only.py
index c781b0549ee60..c6ef68fcac9a0 100644
--- a/pandas/io/tests/parser/c_parser_only.py
+++ b/pandas/io/tests/parser/c_parser_only.py
@@ -371,3 +371,20 @@ def test_internal_null_byte(self):
 
         result = self.read_csv(StringIO(data), names=names)
         tm.assert_frame_equal(result, expected)
+
+    def test_read_nrows_large(self):
+        # gh-7626 - Read only nrows of data in for large inputs (>262144b)
+        header_narrow = '\t'.join(['COL_HEADER_' + str(i)
+                                  for i in range(10)]) + '\n'
+        data_narrow = '\t'.join(['somedatasomedatasomedata1'
+                                for i in range(10)]) + '\n'
+        header_wide = '\t'.join(['COL_HEADER_' + str(i)
+                                for i in range(15)]) + '\n'
+        data_wide = '\t'.join(['somedatasomedatasomedata2'
+                              for i in range(15)]) + '\n'
+        test_input = (header_narrow + data_narrow * 1050 +
+                      header_wide + data_wide * 2)
+
+        df = self.read_csv(StringIO(test_input), sep='\t', nrows=1010)
+
+        self.assertTrue(df.size == 1010 * 10)
diff --git a/pandas/src/parser/tokenizer.c b/pandas/src/parser/tokenizer.c
index 748edc7fcacc5..450abcf6c325c 100644
--- a/pandas/src/parser/tokenizer.c
+++ b/pandas/src/parser/tokenizer.c
@@ -726,16 +726,14 @@ int skip_this_line(parser_t *self, int64_t rownum) {
     }
 }
 
-int tokenize_bytes(parser_t *self, size_t line_limit)
+int tokenize_bytes(parser_t *self, size_t line_limit, int start_lines)
 {
-    int i, slen, start_lines;
+    int i, slen;
     long maxstreamsize;
     char c;
     char *stream;
     char *buf = self->data + self->datapos;
 
-    start_lines = self->lines;
-
     if (make_stream_space(self, self->datalen - self->datapos) < 0) {
         self->error_msg = "out of memory";
         return -1;
@@ -1384,7 +1382,7 @@ int _tokenize_helper(parser_t *self, size_t nrows, int all) {
         TRACE(("_tokenize_helper: Trying to process %d bytes, datalen=%d, datapos= %d\n",
                self->datalen - self->datapos, self->datalen, self->datapos));
 
-        status = tokenize_bytes(self, nrows);
+        status = tokenize_bytes(self, nrows, start_lines);
 
         if (status < 0) {
             // XXX