description: 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.
language: English
title: Nicholas Nickleby
titlecomplete: Nicholas Nickleby
characters: Wackford Squeers, Ralph Nickleby, Nicholas Nickleby, Godfrey Nickleby, Smike, Newman Noggs, Fanny Squeers, Vincent Crummles
genres: Literature, Audiobook, Classics, Novels, Classic Literature, Victorian, 19th Century, Historical Fiction, Fiction, British Literature
ratings_count: 44036
places: London, England, England, Yorkshire, England
awards: awardedAt: 1325404800000
name: Audie Award
category: Classic
publisher: Oxford University Press