Other editions of book NICHOLAS NICKLEBY

NICHOLAS NICKLEBY by Charles Dickens Containing a Faithful Account of the Fortunes, Misfortunes, Uprisings, Downfallings and Complete Career of the Nickleby Family Our hero Nickleby confronts a large cast, including Wackford Squeers, the fantastic ogre of a schoolmaster, and Vincent Crummles, the grandiloquent ham actor, on his comic and satirical adventures up and down the country. Punishing wickedness, befriending the helpless, strutting the stage, and falling in love, Nicholas shares some of his creator's energy and earnestness as he faces the pressing issues of early Victorian society.

The most gorgeously theatrical of all Dickens' 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 Dickens' pantheon. From the dungeon-like Yorkshire boys' boarding school run by the cruel Wackford Squeers to the high-spirited stage of Vincent Crummles' extraordinary acting troupe, Nicholas Nickleby is a triumph of the imagination, bursting with color, humor, and poignant social commentary.

Like most of Dickens's early works, the novel has a contemporary setting. Much of the action takes place in London, with several chapters taking place in Dickens's birthplace of Portsmouth, as well as settings in Yorkshire and Devon. Nickleby is the first of Dickens's romances, an immediate and complete success establishing Dickens's lasting reputation. Mr Ralph Nickleby's first visit to his poor relations Nicholas Nickleby's father dies unexpectedly after losing all of his money in a poor investment. Nicholas, his mother and his younger sister, Kate, are forced to give up their comfortable lifestyle in Devonshire and travel to London to seek the aid of their only relative.

Nicholas Nickleby is at once a moving and funny novel following the fortunes and misfortunes of an impetuous and high-spirited hero. Left penniless by his father's death, and protector of his sister Kate, Nicholas Nickleby becomes a true champion of the weak. Always equal to the wild adventures thrust upon him, young Nicholas has to constantly pit himself against Ralph, his devious and unscrupulous uncle, in order to survive. Includes music extracts from Mozart's 'Clarinet Quartet in E Flat'.

Rare edition with unique illustrations and elegant classic cream paper. When Nicholas Nickleby is left penniless after his father's death, he appeals to his wealthy uncle to help him find work and to protect his mother and sister. But Ralph Nickleby proves both hard-hearted and unscrupulous, and Nicholas finds himself forced to make his own way in the world. His adventures gave Dickens the opportunity to portray an extraordinary gallery of rogues and eccentrics: Wackford Squeers, the tyrannical headmaster of Dotheboys Hall, a school for unwanted boys; the slow-witted orphan Smike, rescued by Nicholas; and the gloriously theatrical Mr and Mrs Crummles and their daughter, the 'infant phenonenon'. Like many of Dickens's novels, Nicholas Nickleby is characterised by his outrage at cruelty and social injustice, but it is also a flamboyantly exuberant work, revealing his comic genius at its most unerring. Includes vintage illustration!

Join us for a comic masterpiece, the third classic novel by master storyteller Charles Dickens. When young Nicholas Nickleby is forced to support his family by the untimely death of his penniless father, he must overcome adversity, and find a suitable job. Along the way, he meets some eccentric, yet captivating characters, escapes from the influence of his evil uncle and finds love, all while facing the pressing issues in early Victorian England.

Charles Dickens is one of the most incontestably remarkable literary authors of all time, and this novel definitely doesn't disappoint his huge fan base, just as it didn't more than 150 years ago, when it was written. Dickens used his own memories and experiences of privation and the horrors of child labor to produce this outstanding work of literary art. Nicholas Nickleby is, without a doubt, one of the illustrous author's most well-known and successful works, as well as a book that holds many valuable lessons for us, even in the world of today.Nicholas Nickleby is a young boy – a gentleman's son who had recently fallen on difficult times. The story brings him through many hardships, and in Dickens' characteristic manner, he is eventually led to solace and peace, with the aid of some kind patrons. While the story seems simple, it most certainly hides many more secrets and challenges than it may seem at first. With Schoolmaster Squeers and Ralph Nickleby both portraying unlikeable traits, and characters such as the commonly abused Smike and the gentle Cheeryble brothers, you will definitely know that you're in a Charles Dickens' novel.The author's unmistakable style, descriptions and characters pave the way to an unlikely and incredibly well put together story that will surprise you in many ways – not just through its genuine, believable outcomes, but also through some of the twists of fate that Dickens employs to create a dramatic effect and exemplify many of the important lessons and points of wisdom that the novel seeks to convey.If you like Dickens' work, you will most certainly enjoy Nicholas Nickleby. The plot, the delivery, the complex characters and the many powerful morals that the author manages to successfully communicate with his entranced audience will keep you glued to your seat, while ensuring that there never will be a dull page or paragraph encountered throughout the entire read.

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. Traders in the avarice, indifference, or imbecility of parents, and the helplessness of children; ignorant, sordid, brutal men, to whom few considerate persons would have entrusted the board and lodging of a horse or a dog; they formed the worthy cornerstone of a structure, which, for absurdity and a magnificent high-minded Laissez-Aller neglect, has rarely been exceeded in the world.