Nicholas Nickleby
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Review
"The novel has everything: an absorbing melodrama, with a supporting cast of heroes, villains and eccentrics, set in a London where vast wealth and desperate poverty live cheek-by-jow."
--Jasper Rees, "The Times"
"Nicholas Nickleby was a revelation. Here was a school -- Dotheboy's Hall, with its grotesque headmaster, Wackford Squeers -- which was even worse than the prison camp to which my poor innocent parents had confined me! The story of Dotheboy's Hall seemed horribly familiar -- the beatings, the bad food. But here was something to which even a child could respond, As well as being sympathetic to the plight of the children, the author was hilarious."
--A.N. Wilson --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
--Jasper Rees, "The Times"
"Nicholas Nickleby was a revelation. Here was a school -- Dotheboy's Hall, with its grotesque headmaster, Wackford Squeers -- which was even worse than the prison camp to which my poor innocent parents had confined me! The story of Dotheboy's Hall seemed horribly familiar -- the beatings, the bad food. But here was something to which even a child could respond, As well as being sympathetic to the plight of the children, the author was hilarious."
--A.N. Wilson --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Book Description
'I love Dickens but I'm particularly fond of Nicholas Nickleby... It's one of those books I can just read and reread' Nigel Havers
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
What can you say? Dickens writes brilliantly.
This entertaining saga follows the handsome eponymous hero through the slings and arrows that follow him into adulthood.
All I had heard about before was Wackford Squeers and Dotheboys Hall, but that is mostly over by the end of the first quarter.
As usual, the plot is a bit pointless but the characters are fantastic, and I thought the cameo role for the villain Mulberry Hawk led to some of the best bits of writing in the book, in particular the description of a drunken argument that leads to a duel. Dickens is such a good writer that he can toss off sensational bits of writing like this on bits of the plot that are far from crucial. His talent just can't be contained.
This, though, is the ignore the main part of the drama as Nickleby fights to overcome the injustices that assail his family. The book certainly has some powerful moments, as well as genuinely funny comic interludes.
Of the characters, Smike is the most tragically drawn and perhaps the most famous: I am not sure that authors today would treat mental impairment the same way, but that is perhaps a failure of today's readers and writers.
I suppose I don't think this novel has the depth of later work like "David Copperfield", which covers similar material, but it is still leagues ahead of most things you will read.
Thoroughly enjoyable and full of humanity.
This entertaining saga follows the handsome eponymous hero through the slings and arrows that follow him into adulthood.
All I had heard about before was Wackford Squeers and Dotheboys Hall, but that is mostly over by the end of the first quarter.
As usual, the plot is a bit pointless but the characters are fantastic, and I thought the cameo role for the villain Mulberry Hawk led to some of the best bits of writing in the book, in particular the description of a drunken argument that leads to a duel. Dickens is such a good writer that he can toss off sensational bits of writing like this on bits of the plot that are far from crucial. His talent just can't be contained.
This, though, is the ignore the main part of the drama as Nickleby fights to overcome the injustices that assail his family. The book certainly has some powerful moments, as well as genuinely funny comic interludes.
Of the characters, Smike is the most tragically drawn and perhaps the most famous: I am not sure that authors today would treat mental impairment the same way, but that is perhaps a failure of today's readers and writers.
I suppose I don't think this novel has the depth of later work like "David Copperfield", which covers similar material, but it is still leagues ahead of most things you will read.
Thoroughly enjoyable and full of humanity.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
"Dreams are the bright creatures of poem and legend, who sport on earth in the night season."
1 Sep 2007
Format:Paperback
A handsome young man who finds himself the sole support of his mother and sister after his father's death, Nicholas Nickleby is hopeful that his uncle, Ralph Nickleby, a weathy speculator in London, will assist the unfortunate family in its hour of need. Ralph's cruel response, however, is to make Nicholas the assistant headmaster at a notoriously abusive school in northern England and to make his beautiful sister a seamstress and part-time hostess at his own parties. There she is subjected to innuendo and to the drunken intentions of men whose accounts help keep Ralph a wealthy man.
This early novel is pure melodrama, with the good characters being unbelievably good, and the evil being unbelievably bad. The multiple adventures of Nicholas through a variety of settings, both in the city and in the countryside, create a broad picture of life in England in the 1830s. Nicholas's job as assistant headmaster exposes him to the horrors of so-called boarding schools for young boys, which were essentially warehouses for young children where they were forced into physical labor, kept malnourished, and beaten regularly. These abuses, based on Dickens's personal observations, so horrified his readers that major reforms of these schools eventually resulted. When Nicholas, in frustration, finally beats headmaster Wackford Squeers for his abuse of the children, Nicholas and Smike, a crippled boy who has been the headmaster's slave, escape together.
Their interlude with a traveling theatrical company, led by friendly Vincent Crummles, gives Nicholas much needed emotional support and provides Smike with a temporary home--until Nicholas is called to return to England to rescue his sister from unwanted attentions fostered by her uncle. Eventually Nicholas works in London for the saintly Cheeryble brothers and meets Madeline Bray, the love of his life.
Long recognized as one of Dickens's best novels for its wide assortment of characters, the novel mixes delightful humor with the pathos. The complex plot employs coincidence and miraculous interventions to save the day for the good characters while well-deserved disasters befall the evil ones. Dickens's vibrant descriptions bring people, places, and scenes fully to life, and the realistically described social conditions provide a clear vision of life's travails.
Despite its great length, the novel is a fast read--and fun--but it is soap opera-like in its ups and downs, and the main characters are not fully developed. One knows little about Nicholas except what one "sees"--that he has a kind heart and acts on it--but we know little about his inner life. (David Copperfield and Pip in Great Expectations are still ten and twenty years away.) Sentimental and occasionally bathetic, the novel involves the reader in the social abuses, some of which were improved as a direct result of this book's publication. Mary Whipple
This early novel is pure melodrama, with the good characters being unbelievably good, and the evil being unbelievably bad. The multiple adventures of Nicholas through a variety of settings, both in the city and in the countryside, create a broad picture of life in England in the 1830s. Nicholas's job as assistant headmaster exposes him to the horrors of so-called boarding schools for young boys, which were essentially warehouses for young children where they were forced into physical labor, kept malnourished, and beaten regularly. These abuses, based on Dickens's personal observations, so horrified his readers that major reforms of these schools eventually resulted. When Nicholas, in frustration, finally beats headmaster Wackford Squeers for his abuse of the children, Nicholas and Smike, a crippled boy who has been the headmaster's slave, escape together.
Their interlude with a traveling theatrical company, led by friendly Vincent Crummles, gives Nicholas much needed emotional support and provides Smike with a temporary home--until Nicholas is called to return to England to rescue his sister from unwanted attentions fostered by her uncle. Eventually Nicholas works in London for the saintly Cheeryble brothers and meets Madeline Bray, the love of his life.
Long recognized as one of Dickens's best novels for its wide assortment of characters, the novel mixes delightful humor with the pathos. The complex plot employs coincidence and miraculous interventions to save the day for the good characters while well-deserved disasters befall the evil ones. Dickens's vibrant descriptions bring people, places, and scenes fully to life, and the realistically described social conditions provide a clear vision of life's travails.
Despite its great length, the novel is a fast read--and fun--but it is soap opera-like in its ups and downs, and the main characters are not fully developed. One knows little about Nicholas except what one "sees"--that he has a kind heart and acts on it--but we know little about his inner life. (David Copperfield and Pip in Great Expectations are still ten and twenty years away.) Sentimental and occasionally bathetic, the novel involves the reader in the social abuses, some of which were improved as a direct result of this book's publication. Mary Whipple
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If Dombey and Son is Dickens's ode to the railway then Nicholas Nickelby represents his portrait of theatre.This novel is a must for all students of 19th Century theatre, peopled as it is by a myriad of melodramatic characters and events.Dickens's brilliantly satirises the early 19th Century theatre by personifying it in the form of the hilariously hammy Crummles and family and the vain Miss Petowker and Snevellicci.
At the heart of the narrative however are the great Dickensian themes of the triumph of altruism over avarice and the cruelty of the 19th Century educational process- ideas further developed in his subsequent work.Squeers could be said to represent a precursor to Thomas Gradgrind and Ralph Nickelby a prototype Dombey.A key subplot is the satirisation of social climbing and sycophancy to the affluent or influential, here brilliantly explored in the Kenwigs and Mrs Nickelby herself.
Nicholas Nickelby is a wonderful social history supported in this edition by an appendix of detailed notes covering issues ranging from: The Corn Laws, The Anatomy Act, legitimate theatre and plagiarism in drama, about which Dickens clearly has a personal grievance.
As ever Dickens's cast of characters are brilliantly sketched - if John Browdie's accent does appear to be a confusing mixture of Yorkshire, Geordie and Scottish dialect!
At the heart of the narrative however are the great Dickensian themes of the triumph of altruism over avarice and the cruelty of the 19th Century educational process- ideas further developed in his subsequent work.Squeers could be said to represent a precursor to Thomas Gradgrind and Ralph Nickelby a prototype Dombey.A key subplot is the satirisation of social climbing and sycophancy to the affluent or influential, here brilliantly explored in the Kenwigs and Mrs Nickelby herself.
Nicholas Nickelby is a wonderful social history supported in this edition by an appendix of detailed notes covering issues ranging from: The Corn Laws, The Anatomy Act, legitimate theatre and plagiarism in drama, about which Dickens clearly has a personal grievance.
As ever Dickens's cast of characters are brilliantly sketched - if John Browdie's accent does appear to be a confusing mixture of Yorkshire, Geordie and Scottish dialect!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Very Depressing
I enjoyed David Copperfield but this was too similar and rather bleak. I haven't finished it yet and probably never will.
Published 28 days ago by Michael_B
Nicholas Nickleby
This is an excellent story. The idea that brings the themes together is aspects of greed regardless of the emotional or moral consequences. Read more
Published 2 months ago by EvilC
White Dog
WHite Dog is my first Australian book that I have read.It takes a few pages to get into the theme of the book. Read more
Published 2 months ago by theHappy man68
overall a marvellous storyline and characters
I have finished this wonderful novel on the eve of the author's 200th anniversary. While for me this was not quite as consistently marvellous throughout as David Copperfield, this... Read more
Published 3 months ago by John Hopper
Rather rambling but enjoyable nonetheless
This was Dickens' third novel which he started writing in 1838, while he was finishing Oliver Twist, and finished writing in 1839, while he was starting The Old Curiosity Shop. Read more
Published 8 months ago by H. M. Holt
Highly entertaining
Yet another beautifully-written and highly entertaining tale- and one with a strong moral theme.
There are, as others observe, too many co-incidences to be plausible,... Read more
There are, as others observe, too many co-incidences to be plausible,... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Donald Hughes
A Great Book
This was Dickens' third novel and was an instant success, arguably this book firmly cemented him into one of our literary greats. Read more
Published 19 months ago by M. Dowden
nicholas nickeby
a good old fashonedn classic. no swearing which is refreshing now days. not so popular as his other works but well worth the discoveryGreat Expectations (Penguin Popular Classics)... Read more
Published on 15 Jun 2009 by Linda Harwood
Dickens classics
I haven't read it yet so I can't give a reveiw of hte writing but the packaging is very good, the print is very clear, the introduction is, if read, interesting and informative. Read more
Published on 17 May 2009 by J. E. Walmsley
A Master Storyteller at Work
This is the first Dickens book I've read and I enjoyed it hugely. I don't normally review books as I don't consider myself sufficiently well-read. Read more
Published on 27 Nov 2007 by G. Fielder
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