Other editions of book Nicholas Nickleby

The most gorgeously theatrical of all Dickenss novels, Nicholas Nickleby follows the delightful adventures of a hearty young hero in nineteenth-century England. Nicholas, a gentleman's son fallen upon hard times, must set out to make his way in the world. His journey is accompanied by some of the most swaggering scoundrels and unforgettable eccentrics in Dickenss pantheon.From the dungeon-like Yorkshire boys boarding school run by the cruel Wackford Squeers to the high-spirited stage of Vincent Crummless extraordinary acting troupe, Nicholas Nickleby is a triumph of the imagination, bursting with color, humor, and poignant social commentary.

This story was begun, within a few months after the publication of the completed "Pickwick Papers." There were, then, a good many cheap Yorkshire schools in existence. There are very few now. Of the monstrous neglect of education in England, and the disregard of it by the State as a means of forming good or bad citizens, and miserable or happy men, private schools long afforded a notable example. Although any man who had proved his unfitness for any other occupation in life, was free, without examination or qualification, to open a school anywhere; although preparation for the functions he undertook, was required in the surgeon who assisted to bring a boy into the world, or might one day assist, perhaps, to send him out of it; in the chemist, the attorney, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker; the whole round of crafts and trades, the schoolmaster excepted; and although schoolmasters, as a race, were the blockheads and impostors who might naturally be expected to spring from such a state of things, and to flourish in it; these Yorkshire schoolmasters were the lowest and most rotten round in the whole ladder.

Charles Dickens needs no formal introduction, having been the most popular English writer of the 19th century and still one of the most popular writers in history today. Dickens was obsessed with reading, making him a natural journalist by the age of 20, when he began a career in journalism. Along the way, he also began writing his own short stories and materials, often serializing them in monthly installments in publications, a popular method of publishing in the 19th century. Unlike most writers, Dickens would not write an entire story before it began its serialization, allowing him to work on the fly and leave plot lines up in the air with each opportunity. By the time he died at the relatively young age of 58 from a stroke, he was already Europe’s most famous writer. His obituary noted that Dickens was a “sympathiser with the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed.” Dickens was interred in Westminster Abbey, a rare honor bestowed only among the greatest and most accomplished Britons. Many of Dickens’ novels were written with the concept of social reform in mind, and Dickens’ work was often praised for its realism, comic genius and unique personalities. At the same time, however, Dickens’ ability as a writer was nearly unrivaled, with his ability to write in prose unquestioned and unmatched.

Containing a Faithful Account of the Fortunes, Misfortunes, Uprisings, Downfallings and Complete Career of the Nickleby Family."I went down into Yorkshire before I began this book, in very severe winter time which is pretty faithfully described herein. As I wanted to see a schoolmaster or two, and was forewarned that those gentlemen might, in their modesty, be shy of receiving a visit from the author of the Pickwick Papers, I consulted with a professional friend who had a Yorkshire connection, and with whom I concerted a pious fraud. He gave me some letters of introduction, in the name, I think, of my traveling companion; they bore reference to a supposititious little boy who had been left with a widowed mother who didn't know what to do with him; the poor lady had thought, as a means of thawing the tardy compassion of her relations in his behalf, of sending him to a Yorkshire school; I was the poor lady's friend, traveling that way; and if the recipient of the letter could inform me of a school in his neighborhood, the writer would be very much obliged. I went to several places in that part of the country where I understood the schools to be most plentifully sprinkled, and had no occasion to deliver a letter until I came to a certain town which shall be nameless. The person to whom it was addressed, was not at home; but he came down at night, through the snow, to the inn where I was staying. It was after dinner; and he needed little persuasion to sit down by the fire in a warm corner, and take his share of the wine that was on the table. I am afraid he is dead now. . . ." -- Charles Dickens