Nicholas Nickleby (2002) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error A young, compassionate man struggles to save his family and friends from the abusive exploitation of his cold-heartedly grasping uncle. Director: From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC a list of 34 titles created 20 Feb 2012 a list of 42 titles created 26 Jul 2012 a list of 47 titles created 05 Aug 2012 a list of 22 titles created 17 Nov 2012 a list of 35 titles created 01 Dec 2012 Search for " Nicholas Nickleby " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Nominated for 1 Golden Globe. Another 1 win & 4 nominations.

See more awards » Videos Edit Storyline Young Nicholas and his family enjoy a comfortable life, until Nicholas' father dies and the family is left penniless. Nicholas, his sister and mother venture to London to seek help from their Uncle Ralph, but Ralph's only intentions are to separate the family and exploit them. Nicholas is sent to a school run by the cruel, abusive and horridly entertaining Wackford Squeers. Eventually, Nicholas runs away with schoolmate Smike, and the two set off to reunite the Nickleby family. Written by Anonymous Every family needs a hero. Genres: Rated PG for thematic material involving some violent action and a childbirth scene | See all certifications » Parents Guide: 27 June 2003 (UK) See more » Also Known As: La leyenda de Nicholas Nickleby See more » Filming Locations: $42,864 (USA) (27 December 2002) Gross: Did You Know? Trivia Despite the Victorian setting. Charlie Hunnam manages to take off his shirt for a "beefcake" scene. See more » Goofs Madeline Bray can be seen clearly with pierced earring holes.

Pierced ears were not of regular use until more than a decade later. At the time, only rich women pierced their ears. See more » Quotes [first lines] Vincent Crummles : What happens when the light first pierces the dark dampness in which we have waited? We are slapped and cut loose. If we are lucky, someone is there to catch us and persuade us that we are safe. But are we safe? What happens if, too early, we lose a parent? That party on whom we rely for only everything? Why, we are cut loose again and we wonder, even dread whose hands will catch us now? There once lived a man named Nicholas Nickleby... Thanks to everyone at One Aldwych. See more » Connections On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at (uncredited) Traditional Yorkshire folk song; sung to the Methodist hymnal tune "Cranbrook" (1805) (uncredited), written by 'Thomas Clark' Performed by Kevin McKidd (uncredited), Helen Coker (uncredited), and Jim Broadbent (uncredited) Sung by John Browdie and Tilda while on their honeymoon in a London public house, accompanied by Mr.

Wackford Squeers England is lovingly represented in this film by a cinematography wedded to landscape. 8 January 2003 | by jdesando (United States) – See all my reviews If Dickens were with us today, he would delight in the stock shenanigans of Michael Milken and the outrageous dysfunction of the Osbourne family. Speculation and family chaos rule his `Nicholas Nickleby,' directed on film by Douglas McGrath (`Emma') and starring Christopher Plummer as cold Uncle Ralph and Jim Broadbent as cruel Wackford Squeers. The idyllic thatched cottage in Devonshire with its white smoke pluming to heaven contrasts sharply with the dark satanic mills of London spewing black smoke into every home and hovel. The eponymous hero, played by Brit TV star Charlie Hunnam, travels both worlds to defend the honor of his sister, overcome the tyranny of his uncle (Plummer), and find love. Along the way Broadbent's boarding-school proprietor, reflecting the workhouse slavery of 19th century England, helps his uncle sabotage Nickleby's spirit and endanger his best friend.

But Nicholas also meets the delightful Cheeryble brothers, one of whom is Mike Leigh regular Timothy Spall in an uncharacteristically cheery role. England is lovingly represented in this film by a cinematography wedded to landscape like a Constable painting, gentlemen appearing as stately as in a Reynolds, and women appearing to be sitting for Gainesboro. All seems well represented without being overdone or obvious. Like a good Dickens novel, the filmed `Nicholas Nickleby' can't help but drive home lessons about honesty and family. Reliance on both will bring happiness. My only question is how did the Golden Globes ever nominate this as a comedy? 29 of 33 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes Nicholas Nickleby | Charles Dickens Info Charles Dickens Info Nicholas Nickleby Nicholas Nickleby Nicholas Nickleby was the third novel of Charles Dickens. The first installment was published on March 31, 1838 and the last installment was published on October 1, 1839.

Nicholas Nickleby – Dickens’s Life At The Time In early 1838 Dickens and Hablot Browne, the illustrator for Nickleby, travel to Yorkshire to see the boarding schools for themselves. On March 6th of that year Dickens’s daughter Mary is born. The first installment of Nicholas Nickleby is published on March 31, 1838. In January of 1839 Dickens begins writing Barnaby Rudge . On October 1, 1839 the final installment of Nickleby is published. On October 29th of that year Dickens’s daughter Kate is born. Yorkshire Boarding Schools One of Dickens’s goals in writing Nicholas Nickleby was to expose the ugly truth about Yorkshire boarding schools.

In the preface to the novel Dickens has this to say about Yorkshire schoolmasters: 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. In the novel Nicholas is sent to teach at Dotheboys Hall. It is a school where there are no holidays, no trips home for the abused and neglected pupils of Mr. Wackford Squeers. Sadly schools like Dotheboys Hall really did exist. In early 1838 Dickens and Hablot Browne, the illustrator of Nicholas Nickleby, visited Yorkshire to get a first hand look at the situation. It was a very short visit, just two days, but it was enough to gather all the material they needed. During their visit they called on William Shaw, the headmaster of Bowes Academy. In 1823 Shaw had been prosecuted for neglect after two pupils became blind because of beatings and poor nutrition.

The situation improved somewhat after the investigation. However even after the investigation it was common for one pupil to die at Bowes Academy every year. Dickens got the idea for Smike as he wandered through a churchyard near Bowes Academy. He read the engravings on the tombstones of the boys who died while attending Bowes and the idea sprang into his mind. Mrs. Nickleby Dickens’s own mother, Elizabeth Dickens, was the model for the always confused, comic Mrs. Nickleby. Luckily for Charles she didn’t recognize herself in the character. In fact she asked someone if they “really believed there ever was such a woman”. Theme in Nicholas Nickleby An issue raised in Nicholas Nickleby deals with the definition of being a gentleman. What exactly does it take to be a true gentleman? Is it a matter of breeding? Sir Mulberry Hawk, who was determined to ruin Kate Nickleby, was surely not a true gentleman despite his good breeding. Wackford Squeers, the headmaster at Dotheboys Hall, proved that it takes more than position to be a gentleman. Ralph Nickleby illustrated that money alone does not make a gentleman.

However in Nicholas Nickleby himself we see that a man is defined by his acts rather than breeding, money or position. It was a harder day’s journey than yesterday’s, for there were long and weary hills to climb; and in journeys, as in life, it is a great deal easier to go down hill than up. However, they kept on, with unabated perseverance, and the hill has not yet lifted its face to heaven that perseverance will not gain the summit of at last. Nicholas Nickleby Information Nicholas Nickleby and the Yorkshire schools - The British Library Nicholas Nickleby and the Yorkshire schools Theme: The novel 1832 - 1880 Since the 18th century, parents had been sending their children to notoriously brutal Yorkshire boarding schools. Here Professor John Sutherland examines the depiction of these schools in Dickens’s ‘social problem novel’, Nicholas Nickleby. Nicholas Nickleby was Charles Dickens’s third full length novel, and his second in ‘numbers’ (i.e. 20 paper-wrapped, monthly, 32-page, parts, costing one shilling per part, each with two full-page etchings).

The novel was serialised between March 1838 and September 1839 (each issue dated a month later). Front cover for Charles Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby The cover of the twenty monthly parts for Nicholas Nickleby, coloured Charles Dickens’s talismanic duck-egg blue. The illustrations were by Hablot K Browne, also known as ‘Phiz’. Free from known copyright restrictions Monthly serialisation was a mode of publication which Dickens had pioneered, to huge success, with The Pickwick Papers a couple of years before. Dickens (born 1812) was, astonishingly, still in his twenties when he wrote Nicholas Nickleby. The famous portrait of Dickens painted by Daniel Maclise, actually created during the composition of Nickleby, captures his youthfulness and the good looks which were regularly commented on. Reproduction of a portrait of Charles Dickens by Daniel Maclise An engraved reproduction of the famous Daniel Maclise portrait of Charles Dickens, aged 27. The original was painted in 1839. Free from known copyright restrictions A haphazard writer This was the period of Dickens’s life when, as he later said, he was going up ‘like a rocket’.

Pickwick had been a wholly comic novel, loosely put together and large parts of it hastily improvised. ‘Boz’ (the pseudonym he used at this stage of his career) was still something of a haphazard writer when he wrote Nickleby. Carefully constructed works would come later in the mid-1840s. If you look at the above cover, for example, it is clear that the author did not, when he began publishing in March 1838, have much idea where the plot would end up 18 months later. Another pressure on narrative construction was that, capitalising on his unprecedented success, Dickens had put his name to too many contracts, with eager publishers for future novels and journalistic commitments. He was in danger, as he said, of ‘busting the boiler’. It’s nice to think one can detect that ‘rush’ in the look of the manuscript itself. Manuscript of the first part of Chapter 15 from Charles Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby The opening of chapter 15 from Nicholas Nickleby, in Charles Dickens's own hand with annotations and crossings out.

Copyright: © Mark Charles Dickens, Head of the Dickens Family The ‘social problem’ novel Between Pickwick and Nicholas Nickleby, Dickens had published Oliver Twist in the magazine Bentley’s Miscellany, of which he was the editor (another heavy call on his time). His story of the foundling boy was a ‘novel with a purpose’ specifically targeting the poor-law act of 1834 and the scandalous cruelties of the workhouse system. It was not merely a bestseller, it ‘changed hearts’ and even government thinking. Dickens realised, with Oliver Twist, that the novel, in his hands, could make the world a better place. Thus was born the so-called ‘social problem’ novel. Dickens’s reforming target in Nicholas Nickleby is the Yorkshire boarding school industry - places even more inhumane, we are to understand, than the public workhouse described in Oliver Twist. Yorkshire and the railway revolution Nicholas Nickleby is set in the mid-1820s, 15 years earlier than its publication. Dickens antedated many of his stories. But here the date is historically significant.

Yorkshire at the period of the novel’s action was a kind of British Siberia. From the 18th century, abusive parents had been dumping their unwanted offspring at cheap boarding schools there. It was all about to change, just at the period Dickens was writing Nicholas Nickleby. Railways, from the late 1830s to the 1860s would network the country. The age of the stagecoach was over, the age of the railway coach began. Nicholas Nickleby is, historically, on the cusp of this revolution. Yorkshire, thanks to steam, would soon be a few hours, not days away. It was no longer remote. As momentous was the introduction of the penny post introduced in 1839, along with the iconic ‘penny black’, the world’s first adhesive postal stamp. The world's first postage stamp Created in 1840, the Penny Black postage stamp revolutionised communication in Britain, making it far cheaper to send post. Free from known copyright restrictions These revolutions were happening as Dickens was writing Nicholas Nickleby. He sets his novel safely back in time from them.

For purposes of research, Dickens undertook a journey to Yorkshire in February 1838, shortly before monthly publication of his novel began. He went by stagecoach (he loved the old way of travel), and gives a vivid description of the trip, thinly fictionalised, in Chapters 5-6 of the novel. He wrote an amusing letter on the subject to his wife and instructed his illustrator (‘Phiz’ - like ‘Boz’, a pseudonym) to create a picture of a stage-coach about to make the arduous journey north. Illustrations to Nicholas Nickleby Illustration of a stage-coach by 'Phiz', from the 1839 edition of Charles Dickens's The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. Free from known copyright restrictions Letter about Yorkshire schools from Charles Dickens to his wife Catherine, 1 February 1838 Manuscript letter from Charles Dickens reporting on his journey to Yorkshire; he comically describes meeting a Yorkshire schoolmistress along the way. Dated 1 February 1838, a month before Nicholas Nickleby began its serialisation.

Free from known copyright restrictions Plot summary Nicholas Nickleby, despite recent stage, TV, and film adaptations remains among the less read of Dickens’s works. A brief summary of the plot will help (skip it if you know the novel): The Nickleby family are left destitute by the death of the father of the family, an amiable farmer also called Nicholas, like his 19-year old son. Nicholas Jr applies to his uncle, Ralph Nickleby, a rich money lender for help. Little help is offered. Pretending to assist (in fact his motives are vicious) Ralph arranges for Nicholas to take up work as an usher (junior teacher) in a Yorkshire boarding school, Dotheboys Hall, at £5 a year. The headmaster and owner, Wackford Squeers, is revealed to be a money-grubbing sadist. Nicholas, a handsome and noble spirited young man, rejects the overtures of Squeers’s repellent daughter and befriends Smike, a pupil brain-damaged by Squeers’s brutality. Nicholas is provoked into thrashing Squeers, in front of all the school, and escapes with Smike back to London.

He supports himself, for a while, with the theatrical company of Vincent Crummles, and subsequently takes up clerical employment with the amiable Cheeryble brothers. His younger sister, Kate, has been apprenticed to a dressmaker, Madame Mantalini. Ralph Nickleby (who revels in Nicholas degradation, which he has engineered) encourages a sensual nobleman, Sir Mulberry Hawk, to seduce Kate. Mrs Nickleby is entirely ineffectual in protecting her daughter. But Nicholas fights off the lecherous peer and sets up his womenfolk in a respectable home. He meanwhile falls in love with Madeline Bray. The wholly villainous Ralph has his own plans to marry Madeline off to a disgusting old moneylender, Gride. Smike dies of tuberculosis contracted at Dotheboys Hall, and is revealed to be Ralph’s son. Nicholas is aided by his uncle’s clerk, Newman Noggs, and together they foil Ralph, who hangs himself. Nicholas, now rich, marries Madeline and Kate marries one of the Cheerybles’ nephews. Squeers is sentenced to transportation to Australia. As the summary indicates, there are three centres of interest.

One is London, where the fates of the Nickleby women, mother and daughter hang, precariously, in the balance. The other is Dotheboys Hall. The third is the world of the travelling theatre. The last had a personal significance for the author. Dickens had himself once longed to be an actor, and throughout life was an avid theatre goer, dramatist, and amateur performer. But at the time of writing Nicholas Nickleby, Dickens was irritated, beyond measure by the fact that theatres in London were putting on unauthorised adaptations of his work, including this one in 1838 (‘Doings at Do-the-Boys Hall’) by the London Adelphi. Playbill for The Theatre Royal, Adelphi advertising Nicholas Nickleby, 1838 Playbill for an unauthorised adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby at the Adelphi Theatre, produced in 1838 before the novel had even finished being serialised.

Illustrations to Nicholas Nickleby - The British Library Illustrations to Nicholas Nickleby Description English In November 1837 Charles Dickens signed a contract with the publishers Chapman and Hall for a new novel ‘of a similar character and of the same extent and contents in point of quantity’ as Pickwick Papers. Nicholas Nickleby was duly published in 20 monthly parts, or numbers, at a shilling each between March 1838 and September 1839, the last being a double number at two shillings. Each part consisted of 32 pages of text and two engraved plates, bound with advertising supplements in pale green wrappers designed by the illustrator Hablot Browne (Phiz). Part publication Publication in parts was a long-established practice which had the advantage for the publisher of spreading the cost of production over a long period, and for the purchaser of making high-quality, lavishly illustrated fiction affordable. Authors also benefited from a regular income while they wrote: Dickens received £150 for each monthly instalment of Nicholas Nickleby.

It became an important form of publication used by many of the most eminent and popular Victorian novelists, including Thackeray and Trollope, especially during the 1850s and 1860s. Dickens and serialisation in monthly parts Dickens relished the immediacy of the serial form and the close relationship it allowed him to establish with his readers. Nine of his novels appeared in monthly instalments: Pickwick Papers, Nicholas Nickleby, Martin Chuzzlewit, Dombey and Son, David Copperfield, Bleak House, Little Dorrit, Our Mutual Friend and Edwin Drood. The format was so successful that both Sketches by Boz and Oliver Twist were reissued in parts several years after their first publication, and The Old Curiosity Shop, Barnaby Rudge and A Tale of Two Cities were issued in monthly parts simultaneously with their appearance as weekly magazine serials. Full title: The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby Published: Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens. Search eText, Read Online, Study, Discuss.

FROM: Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens BY: Gilbert Keith Chesterton Romance is perhaps the highest point of human expression, except indeed religion, to which it is closely allied. Romance resembles religion especially in this, that it is not only a simplification but a shortening of existence. Both romance and religion see everything as it were foreshortened; they see everything in an abrupt and fantastic perspective, coming to an apex. It is the whole essence of perspective that it comes to a point. Similarly, religion comes to a point -- to the point. Thus religion is always insisting on the shortness of human life. But it does not insist on the shortness of human life as the pessimists insist on it. Pessimism insists on the shortness of human life in order to show that life is valueless. Religion insists on the shortness of human life in order to show that life is frightfully valuable -- is almost horribly valuable. Pessimism says that life is so short that it gives nobody a chance; religion says that life is so short that it gives everybody his final chance. In the first case the word brevity means futility; in the second case, opportunity.

But the case is even stronger than this. Religion shortens everything. Religion shortens even eternity. Where science, submitting to the false standard of time, sees evolution, which is slow, religion sees creation, which is sudden. Philosophically speaking, the process is neither slow nor quick since we have nothing to compare it with. Religion prefers to think of it as quick. For religion the flowers shoot up suddenly like rockets. For religion the mountains are lifted up suddenly like waves. Those who quote that fine passage which says that in God's sight a thousand years are as yesterday that is passed as a watch in the night, do not realise the full force of the meaning. To God a thousand years are not only a watch but an exciting watch. For God time goes at a gallop, as it does to a man reading a good tale. All this is, in a humble manner, true for romance. Romance is a shortening and sharpening of the human difficulty. Where you and I have to vote against. a man, or write (rather feebly) against a man, or sign illegible petitions against a man, romance does for him what we should really like to see done.

It knocks him down; it shortens the slow process of historical justice. All romances consist of three characters. Other characters may be introduced; but those other characters are certainly mere scenery as far as the romance is concerned. They are bushes that wave rather excitedly; they are posts that stand up with a certain pride; they are correctly painted rocks that frown very correctly; but they are all landscape -- they are all a background. In every pure romance there are three living and moving characters. For the sake of argument they may be called St. George and the Dragon and the Princess. In every romance there must be the twin elements of loving and fighting. In every romance there must be the three characters: there must be the Princess, who is a thing to be loved; there must be the Dragon, who is a thing to be fought; and there must be St. George, who is a thing that both loves and fights. There have been many symptoms of cynicism and decay in our modern civilisation.

But of all the signs of modern feebleness, of lack of grasp on morals as they actually must be, there has been none quite so silly of so dangerous as this: that the philosophers of to-day have started to divide loving from fighting and to put them into opposite camps. There could be no worse sign than that a man, even Nietzsche, can be found to say that we should go in for fighting instead of loving. There can be no worse sign than that a man, even Tolstoi, can be found to tell us that we should go in for loving instead of fighting. The two things imply each other; they implied each other in the old romance and in the old religion, which were the two permanent things of humanity. You cannot love a thing without wanting to fight for it. You cannot fight without something to fight for. To love a thing without wishing to fight for it is not love at all; it is lust. It may be an airy, philosophical, and disinterested lust; it may be, so to speak, a virgin lust; but it is lust, because it is wholly self-indulgent and invites no attack.

On the other hand, fighting for a thing without loving it is not even fighting; it can only be called a kind of horse-play that is occasionally fatal. Wherever human nature is human and unspoilt by any special sophistry, there exists this natural kinship between war and wooing, and that natural kinship is called romance. It comes upon a man especially in the great hour of youth; and every man who has ever been young at all has felt, if only for a moment, this ultimate and poetic paradox. He knows that loving the world is the same thing as fighting the world. It was at the very moment when he offered to like everybody he also offered to hit everybody. To almost every man that can be called a man this especial moment of the romantic culmination has come. In the first resort the man wished to live a romance. In the second resort, in the last and worst resort, he was content to write one. Now there is a certain moment when this element enters independently into the life of Dickens. There is a particular time when we can see him suddenly realise that he wants to write a romance and nothing else. In reading his letters, in appreciating his character, this point emerges clearly enough.

He was full of the afterglow of his marriage; he was still young and psychologically ignorant; above all, he was now, really for the first time, sure that he was going to be at least some kind of success. There is, I repeat, a certain point at which one feels that Dickens will either begin to write romances or go off on something different altogether. This crucial point in his life is marked by Nicholas Nickleby. It must be remembered that before this issue of Nicholas Nickleby his work, successful as it was, had not been such as to dedicate him seriously or irrevocably to the writing of novels. He had already written three books; and at least two of them are classed among the novels under his name. But if we look at the actual origin and formation of these books we see that they came from another source and were really designed upon another plan. The three books were, of course, the Sketches by Boz, the Pickwick Papers, and Oliver Twist. It is, I suppose, sufficiently well understood that the Sketches by Boz are, as their name implies, only sketches. But surely it is quite equally clear that the Pickwick Papers are, as their name implies, merely papers.

Nor is the case at all different in spirit and essence when we come to Oliver Twist. There is indeed a sort of romance in Oliver Twist, but it is such an uncommonly bad one that it can hardly be regarded as greatly interrupting the previous process; and if the reader chooses to pay very little attention to it, he cannot pay less attention to it than the author did. But in fact the case lies far deeper. Oliver Twist is so much apart from the ordinary track of Dickens, it is so gloomy, it is so much all in one atmosphere, that it can best be considered as an exception or a solitary excursus in his work. Perhaps it can best be considered as the extension of one of his old sketches, of some sketch that happened to be about a visit to a workhouse or a gaol. In the Sketches by Boz he might well have visited a workhouse where he saw Bumble; in the Sketches by Boz he might well have visited a prison where he saw Fagin. We are still in the realm of sketches and sketchiness. The Pickwick Papers may be called an extension of one of his bright sketches. Oliver Twist may be called an extension of one of his gloomy ones.

Had he continued along this line all his books might very well have been note-books. It would be very easy to split up all his subsequent books into scraps and episodes, such as those which make up the Sketches by Boz. It would be easy enough for Dickens, instead of publishing Nicholas Nickleby, to have published a book of sketches, one of which was called "A Yorkshire School," another called "A Provincial Theatre," and another called "Sir Mulberry Hawk or High Life Revealed," another called "Mrs. Nickleby or a Lady's Monologue." It would have been very easy to have thrown over the rather chaotic plan of the Old Curiosity Shop. He might have merely written short stories called "The Glorious Apollos," "Mrs. Quilp's Tea-Party," "Mrs. Jarley's Waxwork," "The Little Servant," and "The Death of a Dwarf." Martin Chuzzlewit might have been twenty stories instead of one story. Dombey and Son might have been twenty stories instead of one story. We might have lost all Dickens's novels; we might have lost altogether Dickens the novelist.

We might have lost that steady love of a seminal and growing romance which grew on him steadily as the years advanced, and which gave us towards the end some of his greatest triumphs. All his books might have been Sketches by Boz. But he did turn away from this, and the turning-point is Nicholas Nickleby. Everything has a supreme moment and is crucial; that is where our friends the evolutionists go wrong. I suppose that there is an instant of midsummer as there is an instant of midnight. If in the same way there is a supreme point of spring, Nicholas Nickleby is the supreme point of Dickens's spring. I do not mean that it is the best book that he wrote in his youth. Pickwick is a better book. I do not mean that it contains more striking characters than any of the other books in his youth. The Old Curiosity Shop contains at least two more striking characters. But I mean that this book coincided with his resolution to be a great novelist and his final belief that he could be one. Henceforward his books are novels, very commonly bad novels. Previously they have not really been novels at all. There are many indications of the change I mean.

Here is one, for instance, which is more or less final. Nicholas Nickleby is Dickens's first romantic novel because it is his first novel with a proper and dignified romantic hero; which means, of course, a somewhat chivalrous young donkey. The hero of Pickwick is an old man. The hero of Oliver Twist is a child. Even after Nicholas Nickleby this non-romantic custom continued. The Old Curiosity Shop has no hero in particular. The hero of Barnaby Rudge is a lunatic. But Nicholas Nickleby is a proper, formal, and ceremonial hero. He has no psychology; he has not even any particular character; but he is made deliberately a hero -- young, poor, brave, unimpeachable, and ultimately triumphant. He is, in short, the hero. Mr. Vincent Crummles had a colossal intellect; and I always have a fancy that under all his pomposity he saw things more keenly than he allowed others to see. The moment he saw Nicholas Nickleby, almost in rags and limping along the high road, he engaged him (you will remember) as first walking gentleman. He was right.

Nobody could possibly be more of a first walking gentleman than Nicholas Nickleby was. He was the first walking gentleman before he went on to the boards of Mr. Vincent Crummles's theatre, and he remained the first walking gentleman after he had come off. Now this romantic method involves a certain element of climax which to us appears crudity. Nicholas Nickleby, for instance, wanders through the world; he takes a situation as assistant to a Yorkshire schoolmaster; he sees an act of tyranny of which he strongly disapproves; he cries out "Stop!" in a voice that makes the rafters ring; he thrashes the schoolmaster within an inch of his life; he throws the schoolmaster away like an old cigar, and he goes away. The modern intellect is positively prostrated and flattened by this rapid and romantic way of righting wrongs. If a modern philanthropist came to Dotheboys Hall I fear he would not employ the simple, sacred, and truly Christian solution of beating Mr. Squeers with a stick. I fancy he would petition the Government to appoint a Royal Commission to inquire into Mr. Squeers.

I think he would every now and then write letters to newspapers reminding people that, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, there was a Royal Commission to inquire into Mr. Squeers. I agree that he might even go the length of calling a crowded meeting in St. James's Hall on the subject of the best policy with regard to Mr. Squeers. At this meeting some very heated and daring speakers might even go the length of alluding sternly to Mr. Squeers. Occasionally even hoarse voices from the back of the hall might ask (in vain) what was going to be done with Mr. Squeers. The Royal Commission would report about three years afterwards and would say that many things had happened which were certainly most regrettable; that Mr. Squeers was the victim of a bad system; that Mrs. Squeers was also the victim of a bad system; but that the man who sold Squeers his cane had really acted with great indiscretion and ought to be spoken to kindly.

Something like this would be what, after four years, the Royal Commission would have said; but it would not matter in the least what the Royal Commission had said, for by that time the philanthropists would be off on a new tack and the world would have forgotten all about Dotheboys Hall and everything connected with it. By that time the philanthropists would be petitioning Parliament for another Royal Commission; perhaps a Royal Commission to inquire into whether Mr. Mantalini was extravagant with his wife's money; perhaps a commission to inquire into whether Mr. Vincent Crummles kept the Infant Phenomenon short by means of gin. If we wish to understand the spirit and the period of Nicholas Nickleby we must endeavour to comprehend and to appreciate the old more decisive remedies, or, if we prefer to put it so, the old more desperate remedies. Our fathers had a plain sort of pity; if you will, a gross and coarse pity. They had their own sort of sentimentalism. They were quite willing to weep over Smike. But it certainly never occurred to them to weep over Squeers. Even those who opposed the French war opposed it exactly in the same way as their enemies opposed the French soldiers. They fought with fighting.

Charles Fox was full of horror at the bitterness and the useless bloodshed; but if any one had insulted him over the matter, he would have gone out and shot him in a duel as coolly as any of his contemporaries. All their interference was heroic interference. All their legislation was heroic legislation. All their remedies were heroic remedies. No doubt they were often narrow and often visionary. No doubt they often looked at a political formula when they should have looked at an elemental fact. No doubt they were pedantic in some of their principles and clumsy in some of their solutions. No doubt, in short, they were all very wrong; and no doubt we are the people, and wisdom shall die with us. But when they saw something which in their eyes, such as they were, really violated their morality, such as it was, then they did not cry "Investigate!" They did not cry "Educate!" They did not cry "Improve!" They did not cry "Evolve!" Like Nicholas Nickleby they cried "Stop!" And it did stop. This is the first mark of the purely romantic method: the swiftness and simplicity with which St. George kills the dragon.

The second mark of it is exhibited here as one of the weaknesses of Nicholas Nickleby. I mean the tendency in the purely romantic story to regard the heroine merely as something to be won; to regard the princess solely as something to be saved from the dragon. The father of Madeline Bray is really a very respectable dragon. His selfishness is suggested with much more psychological tact and truth than that of any other of the villains that Dickens described about this time. But his daughter is merely the young woman with whom Nicholas is in love. We do not care a rap about Madeline Bray. Personally I should have preferred Cecilia Bobster. Here is one real point where the Victorian romance falls below the Elizabethan romantic drama. Shakespeare always made his heroines heroic as well as his heroes. In Dickens's actual literary career it is this romantic quality in Nicholas Nickleby that is most important. It is his first definite attempt to write a young and chivalrous novel. In this sense the comic characters and the comic scenes are secondary; and indeed the comic characters and the comic scenes, admirable as they are, could never be considered as in themselves superior to such characters and such scenes in many of the other books. But in themselves how unforgettable they are. Mr.

Crummles and the whole of his theatrical business is an admirable case of that first and most splendid quality in Dickens -- I mean the art of making something which in life we call pompous and dull, becoming in literature pompous and delightful. I have remarked before that nearly every one of the amusing characters of Dickens is in reality a great fool. But I might go further. Almost every one of his amusing characters is in reality a great bore. The very people that we fly to in Dickens are the very people that we fly from in life. And there is more in Crummles than the mere entertainment of his solemnity and his tedium. The enormous seriousness with which he takes his art is always an exact touch in regard to the unsuccessful artist. If an artist is successful, everything then depends upon a dilemma of his moral character. If he is a mean artist success will make him a society man. If he is a magnanimous artist, success will make him an ordinary man. But only as long as he is unsuccessful will he be an unfathomable and serious artist, like Mr. Crummles. Dickens was always particularly good at expressing thus the treasures that belong to those who do not succeed in this world.

There are vast prospects and splendid songs in the point of view of the typically unsuccessful man; if all the used-up actors and spoilt journalists and broken clerks could give a chorus, it would be a wonderful chorus in praise of the world. But these unsuccessful men commonly cannot even speak. Dickens is the voice of them, and a very ringing voice; because he was perhaps the only one of these unsuccessful men that was ever successful. Nicholas Nickleby - tutorial, study guide & critical commentary Mantex Nicholas Nickleby tutorial, critical comment, plot, and study resources Nicholas Nickleby first appeared as a serial novel in nineteen monthly instalments between 1838 and 1839, published by Chapman and Hall. It was Charles Dickens’ third novel, but he wrote it at the same time as he was completing his second novel, Oliver Twist. He had struck a best-selling formula with his first novel – The Pickwick Papers – an episodic narrative issued in monthly parts, and he stuck to this publishing format, selling 50,000 copies a month of each instalment, which cost one shilling per issue and two shillings for the final double issue.

It is worth noting, in terms of the history of the novel and literature as a cultural medium, that Charles Dickens’ name does not appear on the cover – only his nom de plume, ‘Boz’. And he is not the author but the editor of these recorded adventures – almost as if their existence were due to some other person or source. In addition, each instalment of the serial was illustrated – in this case by his favourite artist, Hablot Knight Browne, who was also given a pseudonym of ‘Phiz’. The convention of illustrating novels persisted until the end of the nineteenth century and then disappeared in the early twentieth. a monthly instalment Nicholas Nickleby – critical commentary The picaresque novel Dickens greatly admired the novelists of the eighteenth century – Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, and Tobias Smollett – all of whom had inherited the earlier tradition of the novel as a picaresque narrative. That is, the focus of attention in a novel was on an individual who engaged with society and embarked on a series of adventures.

In its original form the picaro was usually a low-life character, and this is perhaps reflected in Fielding’s hero (in Tom Jones) being a foundling, or in Smollett’s heroes Roderick Random and Peregrine Pickle being ‘groundlings’ or ordinary characters. The traditional picaresque novel featured a one central character (Lazarillo de Tormes and Tom Jones for example), but Dickens gives this convention a creative twist by having essentially two central characters battling with the vicissitudes of society. Nicholas and his sister Kate are both young and vulnerable following their father’s death. They are saddled with a mother who is worse than useless as a moral and spiritual guide, and they are surrounded by villainous characters who wish to do them harm. Nicholas first has to battle with the psychopathic schoolmaster Wackford Squeers and his equally brutal family. Then he is also thwarted by his uncle, Ralph Nickleby Ralph Nickleby is also the spider at the centre of the corrupt web of upper-class rakes trying to ensnare Kate Nickleby.

Even though it is Sir Willoughby Hawk who is her main assailant, he is a client of Ralph’s and operates under his roof. Kate quite rightly complains that the very person who should be protecting her honour (her uncle) is putting her at risk by exposing her to moral danger and actually using her as live bait to ensnare the rich but simple Lord Frederick Verisopht. The elements of the picaresque novel are normally movement – the journey – encounters with unknown individuals who may be rogues desperadoes, or comic characters. This was the novel as sheer entertainment, and Dickens happily embraced the genre. As well as featuring the hero’s mixed fortunes in society, encounters with rogues and villains, there were also a lot of knockabout comic and farcical scenes, plus no shortage of real physical violence – much in evidence here in the scenes at Dotheboys Hall. There is very little notion of a tightly plotted story. The essence of the picaresque is a loose, episodic tale where one event follows another. Nevertheless, Dickens inserts elements which typify his later command of the tightly plotted serial novel, with a structure unified by overarching metaphors and symbols.

He introduces mysterious and dramatically interesting details which act as a thread through the episodes of the story. For instance, the curious figure of Newman Noggs who works for but despises Ralph Nickleby. He passes a message to Nicholas as he embarks at the start of the novel on his journey to Yorkshire and Dotheboys Hall. This creates a link between them which enables Nicholas to survive the vicissitudes of his exile and even his return under an assumed name (Johnson). The negative parent figure We know that Dickens was very concerned about the ill-treatment of children – despite the fact that he neglected his own. His novels are full of neglected and poor youngsters, children forced into work and crime, and pathetic under-aged beings who suffer and die young. The other side of this coin is the parent figure who neglects those under its supervision and care. Nicholas Nickleby has a wide range of characters who are what might be called the negative parent figure – people who are responsible for people younger than themselves who neglect their welfare and in some cases actively seek to undermine it. First in order of appearance of these figures is Wackford Squeers, the sadistic headmaster of Dotheboys Hall, who acts in loco parentis to his pupils.

Squeers is motivated entirely by greed and self-gratification. He actually robs the pupils under his care; he beats them; more or less starves them; and actively stands in the way of their securing any possible outside help. He is what we would now classify as a sociopath or even a psychopath Mr Bray is one of the many miserly characters in the novel, but his outstanding characteristic is that of an emotionally tyrannical father figure. He has a daughter (Madeleine) who is slavishly devoted to him, but rather than appreciate her efforts, he abuses her unmercifully and turns her life into a living misery. Rather like Squeers, he is entirely self-regarding and even sneers at the very sources of income which keep him alive (the ‘purchases’ made by the Cheerybles). Mrs Nickleby is a great comic figure in the novel – a social snob even when her family has become penniless, and a garrulous featherbrain who fails to understand anything that is going on.

She doesn’t actually make her children suffer, but she is certainly derelict in his role as a parent, and it is interesting to note that she shares self-regard and a solipsistic view of the world with the other negative parent figures in the novel. Ralph Nickleby turns out to be the worst parent figure of all. He is dominated by an almost pathological worship of money. He marries for financial advantage, and when his wife leaves him, he gives away his son – who becomes the abandoned Smike at Dotheboys Hall. The conditions there – in addition to his consumption – contribute to his early death. Money, inheritance, and class The origins of the entire narrative lie in a version of the Biblical parable of the talents. At his death old Nicholas Nickleby divides his money between two sons, Ralph and John. One (Ralph) becomes a money lender (a usurer) and makes more money: The other (John) invests his portion of the inheritance in the stock market and loses everything. This accounts for the tensions within young Nicholas Nickleby’s family and his personal life.

He has been raised and educated to be a ‘gentleman’, but he suddenly finds himself with no money and a mother and sister for whom he is responsible. Nicholas is forced to work as an almost unpaid assistant schoolteacher, whilst his mother clings to comically misplaced snobbish standards as if she were still upper class. Kate too is forced into low-paid work, and can only hope for a suitable marriage to save her from her plight. But any marriage should be on reasonably equal terms. This explains the dramatically stretched issue of conscience and scruples when Nicholas insists that Kate should not encourage Frank Cheeryble as a suitor – because Frank will inherit from his twin uncles, whereas Kate has nothing to inherit. Nicholas puts an equally severe limit on himself when he asks for Madeleine to be taken away from his mother’s house. He is in love with her, but he realises that the Cheerybles will look after her financially, whereas he has no inheritance to offer her. He belongs (albeit temporarily) to a lower social class. However, these problems are resolved by the fairy-tale generosity of the Cheerybles.

Nicholas Nickleby – study resources Oxford Reader’s Companion to Charles Dickens – Amazon UK Nicholas Nickleby – plot summary Chapter I. Old Mr Nickleby leaves money to his two sons, Ralph and Nicholas. Ralph invests his inheritance and becomes a successful money-lender. Nicholas speculates with his money on the stock exchange and loses everything. Chapter II. Ralph and fellow entrepreneurs hold a public meeting to promote interest in a parliamentary bill to establish a muffin-making business, which will in fact be a monopoly. Chapter III. Ralph receives news of the death of his brother. He visits his sister in law and her two young children and, completely lacking in generosity and compassion, arranges to ‘find a job’ for young Nicholas. Chapter IV. Wackford Squeers enrolls pupils for his school at Dotheboys Hall in Yorkshire, and Ralph persuades him to take on Nicholas as an assistant schoolmaster. Chapter V. Nicholas sets off for Yorkshire. Before departure Newman Noggs slips him a mysterious letter. Squeers feeds himself liberally, but completely neglects his pupils. The coach overturns in bad weather. Chapter VI.

The travellers recover at a nearby inn, where they regale each other with tales of ‘The Five Sisters of York’ and ‘The Baron of Grogzwig’. Chapter VII. Nicholas arrives at Dotheboys Hall, meets the abandoned boy Smike, and is given a frugal supper by Mrs Squeers. He reads the mysterious letter from Noggs, offering him sympathy and accommodation in London if ever he should need it. Chapter VIII. Squeers runs the school in a brutal and exploitative manner. All the pupils are broken and miserable. Nicholas is ashamed of being there. Smike has no friends and no hope. Chapter IX. The plain Fanny Squeers decides to fall in love with Nicholas, then announces to her friend Matilda that she is ‘almost’ engaged to him. The two young women entertain their beaux to tea, then fall out in rivalry with each other. Chapter X. Miss Le Crevey paints a miniature portrait of Kate Nickleby. Ralph Nickleby finds Kate a questionable job as a dressmaker with Madam Mantalini and moves her mother into an empty house he owns. Chapter XI.

Kate and her mother leave Miss Le Crevey and are taken by Noggs to live in an old run down house in a poor party of the City. Chapter XII. Fanny and Matilda repair their disagreement of the day before. Matilda is to be married in three weeks. They meet Nicholas and claim he is in love with Fanny. When he refutes this claim, Fanny vows vengeance on Nicholas, who comforts the persecuted Smike. Nicholas starts for Yorkshire Chapter XIII. Smike suddenly runs off from the school, but is hunted down and recaptured. When Squeers starts to administer a public flogging before the assembled boys, Nicholas intervenes and beats Squeers. Nicholas leaves the school to go back to London, and is followed by Smike. Chapter XIV. A wedding anniversary party is under way in the rented rooms of the Keriwigs. nTheir neighbour Noggs is in attendance, despatching punch, when Nicholas and Smike arrive. Chapter XV. The Squeers have sent a defamatory letter to Ralph Nickleby, denouncing Nicholas. Noggs urges patience. Meanwhile Lillyvick lords it over the party and its members.

When the babysitter’s hair catches fire, Nicholas rescues the baby and is admired by everybody as a gentleman and an aristocrat Chapter XVI. Next day Nicholas goes in search of a job, but turns down the position of secretary to an unscrupulous member of parliament. Instead, Noggs arranges for him to become private tutor to the Kenwig girls, under the name of Johnson. Chapter XVII. Kate starts work at Mantalini’s where she feels demeaned by the nature of her position. The Mantalinis are semi-comic buffoons, somehow connected with Ralph Nickleby. Chapter XVIII. Miss Knag has an almost Sapphic crush on Kate, who makes a good impression on visiting customers. But when Kate is chosen to display bonnets instead of Miss Knag, she turns hysterically against her. Chapter XIX. Kate in invited to dinner at her uncle’s house. But the guests are all-male boors, and she has been used as bait to lure a rich young lord. One drunken guest tries to attack her. Ralph Nickleby feels the first twinges of conscience regarding his niece. Chapter XX.

Ralph confronts Kate and her mother with Nicholas’s ‘misdeeds’ (reported by Squeers). Nicholas stands up to Ralph and maintains his innocence – but he is powerless to do anything more. Everything is against him – but he sticks by Smike. Chapter XXI. The Mantalinis are bankrupted (by Ralph) and Kate loses her job. She becomes a companion to Mrs Witterly, who suffers from ‘an excess of soul’. Chapter XXII. Nicholas decides to leave London. He and Smike walk to Portsmouth, but before they get there Nicholas meets the theatrical manager Vincent Crummles, and in desperation is persuaded to join his troupe. Chapter XXIII. When they reach Portsmouth Crummles introduces Nicholas to his band of itinerant ‘actors’, including the ‘infant phenomenon’. Crummles gives Nicholas a French text to translate and plagiarize for performance in a few day’s time. Chapter XXIV. Nicholas writes the play for Miss Snevellicci’s benefit performance (one of many) – then has to go out touting for subscriptions.The play is put on, and despite its ridiculous and corny plot is a big success.

Mr and Mrs Mantalini in Ralph Nickleby’s Office Chapter XXV. Mr Lillyvick the water tax collector arrives to tell Nicholas of his impending marriage to Henrietta Petowker, who is joining the troupe. A comic wedding scene ensues. Nicholas teaches Smike his simple part in Romeo and Juliet. Chapter XXVI. Hawk and Verisopht conspire to pursue the pretty Kate. Hawk wishes to trap Verisopht financially. They visit Ralph Nickleby, who wants to entrap them both. Mrs Nickel by arrives and naively hopes that Kate will marry one of these corrupt rakes. Ralph’s conscience pricks him for a second time. Chapter XXVII. Mrs Nickleby is fascinated with the idea of upper-class connections. She is visited by Pyke and Pluck who flatter her and invite her to the theatre on behalf of Hawk, who oppresses Kate again. They are also introduced to Mrs Witterly, who is also flattered by the attention of these rakes. Chapter XXVIII. Hawk and his entourage become regular visitors chez Mrs Witterly – and continue to oppress Kate.

She appeals to her uncle Ralph for help – but he refuses to do anything, and even though he has encouraged their behaviour, he disapproves of it. So does Noggs, who disapproves of his employer Ralph. Chapter XXIX. Lenville is jealous of Nicolas’s success in the acting troupe. He offers a challenge, but Nicholas knocks him down. Nicholas communicates with Noggs via post, who replies that Kate might need his protection in the future. Chapter XXX. Nicholas prepare to leave the acting company. He goes to dinner, where Mr Snevellicci gets drunks and kisses all the women. An urgent note from Noggs arrives, so Nicholas and Smike leave for London by the morning coach. Chapter XXXI. Noggs negotiates with Miss La Crevey to delay telling Nicholas about Kate’s problems on his imminent arrival in ~London – to forestall rash actions. Chapter XXXII. Nicholas reaches London and immediately goes in search of Noggs, who has deliberately gone out as part of his plan. Nicholas wanders into a hotel and overhears Hawk maligning Kate. He challenges him, but Hawk refuses to reveal his identity.

They fight in the street, and Hawk sustains injuries when his cab overturns. Chapter XXXIII. Nicholas removes Kate from Mrs Witterly’s , his mother from her lodgings, and writes to Ralph denouncing him as a villain. Chapter XXXIV. Ralph is visited by Mr Mantalini who needs money. Mrs Mantalini argues with her husband., during which time Ralph learns about the coach accident. Mr Squeers arrives, and Ralph quizzes him about Smike’s identity and origins. Chapter XXXV. Mrs Nickleby and Kate meet Smike, then Nicholas goes in search of a job, where he meets the improbably philanthropic Mr Cheeryble, who provides him with a well-paid job, a home, and gifts of furniture. Chapter XXXVI. Mrs Kenwigs has a baby. The family all congratulate themselves on their future prospects, but when Nicholas arrives with the news that their ‘benefactor’ Lillyvick has married Henrietta Petowker in Portsmouth, they go to pieces ,thinking that their ‘expectations’ have been ruined. Miss Nickleby Introduced to her Uncle’s Friends Chapter XXXVII.

Nicholas makes a success of his introduction to working at Cheeryble’s, and old Tim Linkinwater’s birthday is celebrated in the office with lots of toasting and good cheer. Mrs Nickleby confides in Nicholas that she is being courted by their next-door neighbour by throwing cucumbers over the wall. Chapter XXXVIII. Miss La Crevey thinks that Smike is changing significantly. Ralph Nickleby visits Hawk who is still recovering from his injuries in the coach crash. Lord Verisopht is amongst the rakes but he thinks that Nicholas has acted honourably in defending his sister’s reputation. On his way back home, Smike is captured by Squeers and held prisoner. Chapter XXXIX. John Browdie arrives in London with his new bride Matilda Price and her friend Fanny Squeers.. They meet Mr Squeers at the Saracen’s Head That night Browdie helps Smike to escape from Squeers’ clutches. Chapter XXXX. Nicholas falls in love with a girl he saw very briefly in the Registry Office. He commissions Noggs to find out who she is and where she lives.

He does this and actually arranges a meeting with her late at night.But when they get there it is the wrong girl. Chapter XXXXI. The eccentric (mad) man next door continues to pay court to Mrs Nickleby – who is flattered by his attentions, even though she feigns to reject them. Chapter XXXXII. Nicholas visits John Browdie at the Saracen’s Head. Whilst they are discussing Fanny Squeers’ lack of marriage prospects, she suddenly appears. There is a comic argument between Fanny and Matilda, then between Squeers and Browdie Chapter XXXXIII. Following the altercation at the Saracen’s Head, Nicholas meets Frank Cheeryble, with whom he feels a close bond. Yet he immediately wonders if he is a rival for the mysterious and beautiful girl – to whom he has never spoken. Frank and one of his uncles visit the Nickleby home the following Sunday, and everybody has a good time. Chapter XXXXIV. Ralph Nickleby is out collecting debts when he is tracked down by Mr Booker, a former business associate who has been in jail.

Booker threatens to reveal compromising information, but Ralph calls his bluff and refuses to help him.There is a fake suicide by Mr Mantalini, then Ralph goes off withSqueers and a stranger, with Noggs in pursuit. Chapter XXXXV. Whilst John and Matilda Browdie are at the Nickleby cottage they are interrupted by Ralph Nickleby, Squeers, and Mr Snawley, who claims to be Smike’s estranged father. THey wish to capture Smike and take him back to Yorkshire, but Smike does not want to go.. After they throw out Squeers, Ralph leaves, threatening legal action against Nicholas. Chapter XXXXVI. Nicholas relates these incidents to the Cheerybles, who tell him a similar story about the beautiful girl who has devoted herself to an unloving father who is a wastrel. They want to use Nicholas as a means of supplying money to her. This enables him to meet Madeleine Bray and her thankless father. Chapter XXXXVII. Ralph Nickleby arrives at his office with Arthur Gride, who relates his plan to marry Madeleine Bray so as to acquire a property she will inherit.

Ralph forces him to sign an agreement between them – all overheard by Noggs. They visit Bray and Madeleine and put their plan into motion, hoping that the greedy and heartless Bray will persuade Madeleine to accept. Chapter XXXXVIII. Nicholas is upset regarding his role in the supply of money to Madeleine Bray. He then meets up with the Crummles theatrical troupe giving their farewell performances before going to America. There is another lengthy dinner with speeches. Mr Linkinwater Intimates his Approval of Nicholas Chapter XLIX. In the Nickleby household Smike is suffering from consumption, but hides it from everyone. The mad old man from next door comes down the chimney in pursuit of Mrs Nickleby, but then changes to Miss La Crevey when he sees her. Chapter L. Sir Mulberry Hawk appears at Hampton Races after recuperating abroad. He quarrels with Lord Verisopht, who has a guilty conscience regarding his part in the plot against Kate. That night, after gambling and drinking, they fight a duel, in which Lord Frederick is killed. Chapter LI. Arthur Gride selects his clothes for the marriage to Madeleine Bray.

Noggs has been approached by the mysteriousMr Brooker, and he tells Nicholas about Gride’s plan to marry Madeleine Bray. Chapter LII. Noggs takes Moreleen Kenwig to the barber, where they meet Lillyvick. His wife Henrietta has eloped with a solider, so he is received at the Kenwigs where he reverses the terms of his will in their favour, following much sycophancy on both sides. Chapter LIII. Nicholas appeals directly to Madeleine to call off or at least delay the marriage. He explains the plot between her father and Gride. But she refuses: she is sacrificing herself to gain the money promised to support her father. Nicholas then goes to Gride and offers to buy him off, but Gride refuses. Chapter LIV. Ralph and Arthur Gride arrive at the Bray house on the morning of the wedding, but suddenly Nicholas and Kate arrive to confront them and take Madeleine away. There is a stand off, and then Bray drops dead upstairs. Nicholas takes Madeleine away telling Ralph that his business has collapsed. Chapter LV.

Mrs Nickleby is convinced that Frank Cheeryble is in love with Kate, who is looking after Madeleine as she recovers. Mrs Nickleby asks Nicholas to encourage the relationship, but he warns against it on the grounds that they are poor, whereas Frank has ‘expectations’ from his uncles. Nicholas is then commissioned to take the ailing Smike to Devon for convalescence. Chapter LVI. Ralph has lost £10,000 in a bank crash. Returning to Gribe’s house, they discover that old Peg has stolen incriminating papers and absconded. Ralph devises an elaborate plan of revenge (on Nicholas and just about everybody else) which includes the Snawley and Smike relationship, Madeleine’s inheritance, and recovery of Gride’s stolen documents. He enlists the services of Squeers to do the dirty work and carefully excludes all mention of himself from the arrangements. Chapter LVII. Ralph has located old Peg and Squeers visits her in a drunken state. He persuades her to show him the documents – but whilst they are inspecting them Frank Cheeryble and Noggs sneak into the room and knock Squeers out. Chapter LVIII.

Nicholas takes Smike to Devon where they share a bucolic and tranquil existence. Smike has a fleeting vision of the man who first took him to Dotheboys Hall, reveals that he has been in love with Kate , and dies. Chapter LIX. An anxious Ralph is visited by Charles Cheeryble who wishes to warn him of something – but he dismisses him. Ralph goes off in search Noggs, Squeers, and Snawley, but none of them are to be found. So he goes to Cheerybles where he is confronted by Noggs who has unravelled the whole pilot. They offer him an honourable escape, but he scorns it. Chapter LX. Ralph tracks down Squeers at the police station where he is being held on remand. There are signs that even Squeers is turning against him. Then he returns to Cheerybles, where they produce Ralph’s former employee Mr Brooker, who reveals that Smike was Ralph’s son. Ralph suddenly disappears. Chapter LXI. Nicholas returns from Devon and learns that Kate has refused an offer of marriage from Frank Cheeryble on grounds of differences in their social positions.

Nicholas vows to do the same regarding Madeleine, and asks the Cheerybles to remove her from his mother’s house. Chapter LXII. Ralph retreats to his house, followed by a black cloud, and is oppressed by feelings of defeat and the fact that his enemy Nicholas was the person who looked after his own son, Smike. He goes into the attic and hangs himself. Chapter LXIII. The Cheerybles summon everyone to a dinner at which the details of Madeleine’s inheritance are made known and the two couples – Frank and Kate, and Nicolas and Madeleine – are united.Then Tim Linkinwater proposes to Miss La Crevey, who accepts, much to Mrs Nickleby’s disgust. Chapter LXIV. Nicholas travels to Yorkshire to see his friend John Browdie and brings him up to date with all the news. It is revealed that Squeers has been found guilty and transported for seven years. John Browdie rides over to Dotheboys Hall where the boys revolt against Mrs Squeers and her two offspring. They then all run away. Conclusion. Nicholas marries Madeleine on the same day that Frank marries Kate. Nicholas becomes a partner in the firm.

Ralph’s money is left un-touched and reverts to the State. Gride escapes punishment, but is then murdered. Hawk lives abroad, but on return is jailed for debt, where he dies. Mont Blanc – Charles Dickens special edition Nicholas Nickleby – principal characters an ex-convict and formerly Ralph’s clerk Further reading Peter Ackroyd, Dickens, London: Mandarin, 1991. John Forster, The Life of Charles Dickens, Forgotten Books, 2009. Edgar Johnson, Charles Dickens: His Tragedy and Triumph, Little Brown, 1952. Fred Kaplan, Dickens: A Biography, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Frederick G. Kitton, The Life of Charles Dickens: His Life, Writings and Personality, Lexden Publishing Limited, 2004. Michael Slater, Charles Dickens, Yale University Press, 2009. Nicholas Nickleby Bernard Bergonzi, ‘Nicholas Nickleby’, Dickens and the Twentieth Century, ed.

John Gross and Gabriel Pearson, London: Routledge, 1962 John Bowen, ‘Performing Business, Training Ghosts: Transcending Nickleby, ELH 63, 1996. V.C. Clinton-Baddeley, ‘Snevellicci’, Dickensian 57, 1961 Phillip Collins , Dickens and Education, London: Macmillan, 1963 Norman Russell, ‘Nicholas Nickleby and the Commercial Crisis of 1825′, Dickensian 77, 1981. Paul Schlike, Dickens and Popular Entertainment, London: Allen and Unwin, 1985. Michael Slater, The Composition and Monthly Publication of Nicholas Nickleby, London: Scholar Press, 1973. General criticism G.H. Ford, Dickens and His Readers, Norton, 1965. P.A.W. Collins, Dickens and Crime, London: Palgrave, 1995. Philip Collins (ed), Dickens: The Critical Heritage, London: Routledge, 1982. Andrew Sanders, Authors in Context: Charles Dickens, Oxford University Press, 2009.

Jeremy Tambling, Going Astray: Dickens and London, London: Longman, 2008. Donald Hawes, Who’s Who in Dickens, London: Routledge, 2001. Other works by Charles Dickens Pickwick Papers (1836-37) was Dickens’ first big success. It was issued in twenty monthly parts and is not so much a novel as a series of loosely linked sketches and changing characters featured in reports to the Pickwick Club. These recount comic excursions to Rochester, Dingley Dell, and Bath; duels and elopements; Christmas festivities; Mr Pickwick inadvertently entering the bedroom of a middle-aged lady at night; and in the end a happy marriage. Much light-hearted fun, and a host of memorable characters. Buy the book here Oliver Twist (1837-38) expresses Dickens’ sense of the vulnerability of children. Oliver is a foundling, raised in a workhouse, who escapes suffering by running off to London. There he falls into the hands of a gang of thieves controlled by the infamous Fagin. He is pursued by the sinister figure of Monks who has secret information about him.

The plot centres on the twin issues of personal identity and a secret inheritance (which surface again in Great Expectations). Emigration, prison, and violent death punctuate a cascade of dramatic events. This is the early Victorian novel in fine melodramatic form. Recommended for beginners to Dickens.

Question: Who wrote the novel ‘Nicholas Nickleby’?
Answer: Charles Dickens