Nicholas Nickleby by Dickens: Book Summary & Characters - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com Nicholas Nickleby by Dickens: Book Summary & Characters Watch short & fun videos Start Your Free Trial Today An error occurred trying to load this video. Try refreshing the page, or contact customer support. You must create an account to continue watching Register for a free trial Are you a student or a teacher? I am a student Start Your Free Trial To Continue Watching As a member, you'll also get unlimited access to over lessons in math, English, science, history, and more. Plus, get practice tests, quizzes, and personalized coaching to help you succeed. Coming up next: Pip in Great Expectations: Character Analysis & Overview You're on a roll. Keep up the good work! Your next lesson will play in 10 seconds 0:02 The Novel Add to Add to Add to Want to watch this again later? Log in or sign up to add this lesson to a Custom Course. Custom Courses are courses that you create from Study.com lessons. Use them just like other courses to track progress, access quizzes and exams, and share content. Teachers Organize and share selected lessons with your class. Make planning easier by creating your own custom course.

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In this lesson, we learn about Charles Dickens' novel 'Nicholas Nickleby.' After an overview of the characters, we examine the plot of the novel, briefly analyze some of its themes, and finish with a short quiz. Introducing to the Novel Nicholas Nickleby, the third novel by Charles Dickens, follows the life of Nicholas Nickleby. After his father dies, Nicholas is left to take care of his mother and sister. His uncle is a crook and actively tries to ruin Nicholas' life. Luckily, the novel ends happily, with all of the bad characters either in jail or dead, and both Nicholas and his sister are happily in love with good matches. Like many of Dickens' novels, it was first published in the serial format from 1838 to 1839. Cast of Characters A trademark of Charles Dickens' novels is an extensive cast of characters. It would be impossible to list every character here, but before we can outline the plot, it is important to get to know a few of the more crucial characters.

There are essentially five groups of characters, some of whom overlap: the Nickleby family, Ralph Nickleby and his business partners, the Squeers and the other characters who live in Yorkshire and/or are involved with Dotheboys Hall, Nicholas' London associates, and, finally, the Crummles' theater troupe with which Nicholas becomes involved. The Nicklebys Nicholas Nickleby is loyal, honest, young, and, as a result of his youth, often hotheaded. His sister, Kate Nickleby, has many similar qualities to Nicholas, but is more demure. Their mother, Catherine Nickleby, often serves as comic relief. Ralph Nickleby and Company Ralph Nickleby, Nicholas' uncle, hates him. He is also greedy and most of the people he hangs out with share his bad qualities. One of the few exceptions is Newman Noggs, Ralph's clerk and Nicholas' friend. A few of his other associates are Sir Mulberry Hawk, Lord Verisopht, Mr. Pluck and Mr. Pyke, Arthur Gride, and Brooker. Dotheboys Hall/Yorkshire The Squeers run Dotheboys Hall. Wackford Squeers, Mrs.

Squeers, and their two children, Wackford II and Fanny, are all fairly despicable. Mr. and Mrs. Squeers beat the children entrusted to them at Dotheboys. Smike, one of the boys at Dotheboys Hall, is beaten by the Squeers more than the others. Smike is secretly Nicholas' cousin (and the son of Ralph). His parentage is the subject of a lot of scheming and blackmailing in the novel. John Browdie (the eventual husband of Tilda Price) and Tilda Price (Fanny's best friend for part of the book) are two of the few honorable characters featured in this location. Londoners The Nicklebys' landlady, Miss La Creevy, is a great family friend. Kate Nickleby is employed by Mr. and Mrs. Madame Mantalini for a time, then she's employed by Henry and Julia Wittiterly as Mrs. Wittiterly's companion. Charles and Ned Cheerblye, twin merchants, are two of the most moral characters in London. They do a lot of charity work, employ Nicholas, and help restore his hope in humanity. Their nephew, Frank, loves and marries Kate.

He is similar in personality to Nicholas: a good man with a temper, especially over unjust situations. Walter and Madeline Bray used to be rich, but they are in a lot of debt. Walter is not a great father, but Madeline is loyal to him. She and Nicholas love each other. Crummles Theater Troupe Vincent Crummles and Mrs. Crummles, both prone to dramatics, run the Crummles theater troupe. Vincent is a mentor to Nicholas. Their daughter, Ninetta Crummles, is somewhere between 10 and 18. Her age is vague because of her diet, which stunted her health. She features in every performance. Plot Summary When Mr. Nickleby dies, his wife and two children move to London to be with Mr. Nickleby's brother, Ralph. Ralph, however, hated his brother and hates his wife and children by association. He gets Nicholas an awful job working for Wackford Squeers, who is headmaster at Dotheboys Hall, a school for unwanted children in Yorkshire. Nicholas is outraged by the way Squeers treats the boys at the school.

Squeers goes too far beating Smike one day and Nicholas stops him. Squeers and Nicholas fight. Aided by John Browdie, Nicholas and Smike run away from the school to London. Ralph, meanwhile, makes Catherine and Kate miserable. He moves them into a bad apartment, and while he gets Kate a job working for the Mantalinis, Ralph also uses her beauty to entice his greedy associates to do business with him. When Hawk tries to attack Kate, Ralph intervenes, but threatens Kate not to tell anyone. When Ralph learns about what Nicholas did at Dotheboys, he disowns Nicholas and orders Catherine and Kate not to help him. Driven out of London, Nicholas and Smike take to the road. Nicholas joins the Crummles theater troupe. Back in London, Kate is fired from her job with the Mantalinis because Miss Knagg is jealous of her youth and beauty. She is briefly employed by the Wittiterlys as a companion for Mrs. Wittiterly. Kate has a falling out with her employers because Mrs. Wittiterly becomes jealous of the attention Ralph's associates are showing Kate, even though Kate does not want it.

Ralph's clerk, Newman Noggs, urges Nicholas to come home. Afraid Nicholas will severely beat Hawk for his offenses against his sister, Newman Noggs and the Nickleby's former landlady do not tell Nicholas the specifics immediately. Unfortunately, Nicholas learns of the behavior anyway. He gets in a physical fight with Hawk. The fight gives Verisopht a change of heart and results in a duel between Verisopht and Hawk. Verisopht is killed in the duel and Hawk flees the country. Nicholas tells his uncle that they are done with him. Nicholas, his sister, their mother, and Smike all move back in with Miss La Creevy. He finds work with the Cheeryble twins. Smike, unfortunately, runs into some bad luck. Ralph's former clerk, Brooker, tries to blackmail Smike about his parentage. Meanwhile, Wackford Squeers moves to London. He targets Smike and kidnaps him. John Browdie learns about the kidnapping and rescues Smike. As a thank you, Nicholas invites John Browdie and his new wife to dinner.

× David Perdue's Charles Dickens Page Nicholas Nickleby FAQ & Email Cheap boarding schools in Yorkshire were advertised in the London papers with an emphasis on 'no holiday' and were a convenient place to dispose of unwanted or illegitimate children. Dickens and his illustrator Hablot Browne (phiz) traveled incognito to Yorkshire on a fact-finding mission in January 1838. There they encountered William Shaw, headmaster of Bowes Academy, in whose school several boys had died or went blind from mistreatment and neglect. Visiting a cemetery in the area Dickens found the graves of many of the students of these schools and one in particular Dickens said "put Smike into my head". Smike was the abused inmate of Dotheboys Hall, the fictional school he based on Shaw's Bowes Academy in Nicholas Nickleby. The fictional headmaster of Dotheboys Hall, Wackford Squeers, was based on William Shaw. The ignorance of the schoolmaster Squeers is more than a comic exaggeration. Edgar Johnson, in his biography of Dickens, notes that as late as 1851, 2.5 per cent of the schoolmasters and mistresses in private schools signed their census returns with a mark.

Three Actors Herb Moskovitz examines Dickens' love of the theatre. The theater is central to the plot of Nicholas Nickleby and Dickens dedicated the novel to his friend, distinguished actor and theater manager William Macready . Dickens' life during the serialization of Nicholas Nickleby Mar 1838 - Sep 1839 Wikipedia - Nicholas Nickleby The Cheeryble Brothers The story of the benevolent brothers who aid Nicholas and his family resulted in Dickens getting hundreds upon hundreds of applications for loans, gifts, and other requests for aid to be forwarded to the originals of the Cheeryble brothers. In the preface to the Cheap Edition of Nicholas Nickleby in 1848 Dickens claimed that the brothers were based on real persons "with whom I never interchanged any communication in my life". Paul Davis in The Penguin Dickens Companion says that the brothers were based on William and Daniel Grant, Manchester calico merchants whom Dickens met in 1838. Squeers' Advertisement in the London Papers "EDUCATION.

-- At Mr Wackford Squeers's Academy, Dotheboys Hall, at the delightful village of Dotheboys, near Greta Bridge in Yorkshire, Youth are boarded, clothed, booked, furnished with pocket-money, provided with all necessaries, instructed in all languages living and dead, mathematics, orthography, geometry, astronomy, trigonometry, the use of the globes, algebra, single stick (if required), writing, arithmetic, fortification, and every other branch of classical literature. Terms, twenty guineas per annum. No extras, no vacations, and diet unparalleled. Mr Squeers is in town, and attends daily, from one till four, at the Saracen's Head, Snow Hill. N.B. An able assistant wanted. Annual salary 5 pounds.

A Master of Arts would be preferred." Dickens Describes the Boys at Dotheboys Hall Pale and haggard faces, lank and bony figures, children with the countenances of old men, deformities with irons upon their limbs, boys of stunted growth, and others whose long meagre legs would hardly bear their stooping bodies, all crowded on the view together; there were the bleared eye, the hare-lip, the crooked foot, and every ugliness or distortion that told of unnatural aversion conceived by parents for their offspring, or of young lives which, from the earliest dawn of infancy, had been one horrible endurance of cruelty and neglect. There were little faces which should have been handsome, darkened with the scowl of sullen, dogged suffering; there was childhood with the light of its eye quenched, its beauty gone, and its helplessness alone remaining.

Excerpt: There once lived, in a sequestered part of the county of Devonshire, one Mr Godfrey Nickleby: a worthy gentleman, who, taking it into his head rather late in life that he must get married, and not being young enough or rich enough to aspire to the hand of a lady of fortune, had wedded an old flame out of mere attachment, who in her turn had taken him for the same reason. Thus two people who cannot afford to play cards for money, sometimes sit down to a quiet game for love. nicholas nickleby : definition of nicholas nickleby and synonyms of nicholas nickleby (English) 11 External links Background Nicholas Nickleby is Charles Dickens' third published novel. He returned to his favourite publishers and to the format that was considered so successful with The Pickwick Papers . The story first appeared in monthly parts, after which it was issued in one volume. The style is considered to be episodic and humorous.

Dickens began writing 'Nickleby' while still working on Oliver Twist and while the mood is considerably lighter, his depiction of the Yorkshire school run by Wackford Squeers is as moving and influential as those of the workhouse and criminal underclass in Twist. 'Nickleby' marks a new development in a further sense as it is the first of Dickens' romances . When it was published the book was an immediate and complete success, and established Dickens's lasting reputation. The cruelty of a real Yorkshire schoolmaster named William Shaw became the basis for Dickens's brutal character of Wackford Squeers. Dickens visited his school and based the school section of Nicholas Nickleby on his visit. [1] Major themes Like many of Dickens' works, the novel has a contemporary setting. Much of the action takes place in London, with several chapters taking place in Dickens' birthplace of Portsmouth , as well as settings in Yorkshire and Devon . The tone of the work is that of ironic social satire , with Dickens taking aim at what he perceives to be social injustices.

Many memorable characters are introduced, including Nicholas' malevolent Uncle Ralph, and the villainous Wackford Squeers, who operates an abusive all-boys boarding school at which Nicholas temporarily serves as a tutor. Plot Mr Ralph Nickleby's first visit to his poor relations Nicholas Nickleby's father dies unexpectedly after losing all of his money in a series of poor investments. 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's uncle Ralph Nickleby. Ralph, a cold and ruthless businessman, has no desire to help his destitute relations and hates Nicholas on sight. He gets Nicholas a low-paying job as an assistant to Wackford Squeers, who runs the school Dotheboys Hall. Nicholas is initially wary of Squeers (a very unpleasant man with one eye) because he is gruff and violent towards his young charges, but he tries to quell his suspicions.

As Nicholas boards the stagecoach for Greta Bridge, he is handed a letter by Ralph's clerk, Newman Noggs, a once-wealthy man who has lost all of his money and has become an alcoholic. The letter expresses concern for the innocent young man and offers assistance if Nicholas ever requires it. Once he arrives in Yorkshire, Nicholas comes to realise that Squeers is running a scam: he takes in unwanted children (most of whom are illegitimate, crippled or deformed) for a high fee, and starves and mistreats his charges while using the money sent by their parents to pad his own pockets. Squeers and his monstrous wife whip and beat the children regularly while spoiling their own son rotten. While he is there, Nicholas befriends a simple boy named Smike, who is older than the other “students” and now acts as an unpaid servant. Nicholas attracts the attention of Fanny Squeers, his employer's plain and shrewish daughter, who deludes herself into thinking that Nicholas is in love with her. She attempts to disclose her affections during a game of cards, but Nicholas doesn't catch her meaning.

Instead he ends up flirting with her friend Tilda Price, to the consternation of both Fanny and Tilda's friendly but crude-mannered fiancé John Browdie. After being accosted by Fanny again, Nicholas bluntly tells her he does not return her affections and wishes to be free of the horrible atmosphere of Dotheboys Hall, earning her hatred. Nicholas astonishes Mr Squeers and family One morning, Smike runs away, but is caught and brought back to Dotheboys. Squeers begins to beat him, but Nicholas intervenes. Squeers strikes him across the face and Nicholas snaps, beating the schoolmaster violently. Quickly packing his belongings and leaving Dotheboys Hall, he meets John Browdie on the way. Browdie finds the idea that Squeers himself has been beaten uproariously funny, and gives Nicholas money and a walking staff to aid him on his trip back to London. At dawn, he is found by Smike, who begs to come with him. Nicholas and Smike set out towards London.

Nicholas seeks out the aid of Newman Noggs, who shows him a letter that Fanny Squeers has written to Ralph viciously exaggerating the events of the beating. Noggs tells Nicholas, who is intent on confronting his uncle, that Ralph is out of town and advises him to find a job. Nicholas goes to an employment office, where he encounters a strikingly beautiful girl. His search for employment fails, and he is about to give up when Noggs offers him the meagre position of French teacher to the children of his neighbours, the Kenwigs family, and Nicholas is hired under the assumed name of “Johnson” to teach the children French. Meanwhile, Kate and her mother are forced by Ralph to move out of their lodgings in the house of the kindly portrait painter Miss LaCreevy and into a cold and drafty house Ralph owns in a London slum. Ralph finds employment for Kate working for a milliner, Madame Mantalini. Her husband, Mr Mantalini, is a gigolo who depends on his wife to supply his extravagant tastes and offends Kate by flirting with her.

Kate proves initially clumsy at her job, which endears her to the head of the showroom, Miss Knag, a vain and foolish woman who uses Kate to make herself look better. This backfires when a client prefers to be served by the young and pretty Kate rather than the aging Miss Knag, who blames Kate for the insult. As a result, Kate is ostracised by the other milliners and left friendless. Ralph asks Kate to attend a dinner he is hosting for some business associates, and when she arrives she discovers she is the only woman in attendance. The other guests include the disreputable nobleman Sir Mulberry Hawk and his friend, Lord Frederick Verisopht. Hawk humiliates Kate at dinner by making her the subject of an offensive bet. After one too many drinks he attempts to force himself on her but is stopped by Ralph. Ralph shows some unexpected tenderness towards Kate but insinuates that he will withdraw his financial help if she tells her mother about what happened. Several days later, Nicholas discovers that his uncle has returned. He visits his mother and sister just as Ralph is reading them Fanny Squeers’s letter and slandering Nicholas.

He confronts his uncle, who vows to give no financial assistance to the Nicklebys as long as Nicholas stays with them. His hand forced, Nicholas agrees to leave London, but warns Ralph that a day of reckoning will one day come between them. The next morning, Nicholas and Smike travel towards Portsmouth with the intention of becoming sailors. At an inn, they encounter the theatrical manager Vincent Crummles, who hires Nicholas (still going under the name of Johnson) on sight as his new juvenile lead and playwright with the task of adapting French tragedies into English and then modifying them for the troop’s minimal dramatic abilities. Nicholas and Smike join the acting company and are warmly received by the troupe, which includes Crummles’s formidable wife, their daughter, “The Infant Phenomenon”, and many other eccentric and melodramatic thespians. Nicholas and Smike make their debuts in Romeo and Juliet , as Romeo and the Apothecary respectively, and are met with great acclaim from the provincial audiences. Back in London, Mr Mantalini’s reckless spending has bankrupted his wife. Madame Mantalini is forced to sell her business to Miss Knag, whose first order of business is to fire Kate.

She finds employment as the companion of the social-climbing Mrs Wittiterly. Meanwhile, Sir Mulberry Hawk begins a plot to humiliate Kate for refusing his advances. He uses Lord Frederick, who is infatuated with her, to discover where she lives from Ralph. He is about to succeed in this plot when Mrs Nickleby enters Ralph’s office, and the two rakes switch their attentions from Kate’s uncle to her mother, successfully worming their way into Mrs Nickleby’s company and gaining access to the Wittiterly house. Kate goes to her uncle for assistance, but he refuses to help her, citing his business relationships with Hawk and Verisopht. It is left to Newman Noggs to come to her aid, and he writes to Nicholas, telling him in vague terms of his sister’s need for him. Nicholas immediately quits the Crummles troop and returns to London. When he arrives, he searches the city for Noggs, Miss La Creevy and his family to discover what has occurred. This search proves unsuccessful until he accidentally overhears Hawk and Lord Frederick rudely toasting Kate in a restaurant. He is able to glean from their conversation what has happened, and confronts them.

Hawk refuses to give Nicholas his name or respond to his accusations. When he attempts to leave, Nicholas follows him out, and leaps onto the running board of his carriage, demanding his name. Hawk attempts to strike him, and Nicholas loses his temper, beating the nobleman and spooking the horses, causing the carriage to crash. Hawk is injured in the crash and vows revenge, but Lord Verisopht, remorseful for his treatment of Kate, tells him that he will attempt to stop him. Later, after Hawk has recovered, they quarrel over Hawk’s insistence on harming Nicholas, and Verisopht strikes Hawk, resulting in a duel. Verisopht is killed, and Hawk flees to France. As a result, Ralph loses a large sum of money owed to him by the deceased lord. Nicholas collects Kate from the Wittiterlys, and with their mother and Smike, they move back into Miss LaCreevy’s house. Nicholas pens a letter to Ralph refusing, on behalf of his family, a penny of his uncle’s money or influence. Returning to the employment office, Nicholas meets Charles Cheeryble, a wealthy and extremely benevolent merchant who runs a business with his twin brother Ned.

Hearing Nicholas’s story, the brothers take him into their employ at a generous salary and provide his family with a small house in a London suburb. Ralph encounters a beggar, who recognises him and reveals himself as Brooker, Ralph’s former employee. He attempts to blackmail Ralph with a piece of unknown information, but is driven off. Returning to his office, Ralph receives Nicholas’s letter and begins plotting against his nephew in earnest. Wackford Squeers returns to London and joins Ralph in his plots. Smike has the misfortune to run into Squeers on a London street, who kidnaps him. Luckily for Smike, John Browdie is honeymooning in London with his new wife Tilda and discovers his predicament. When they have dinner with Squeers, Browdie fakes an illness and takes the opportunity to rescue Smike and send him back to Nicholas. In gratitude, Nicholas invites the Browdies to dinner.

At the party, also attended by the Cheerybles’s nephew Frank and their elderly clerk Tim Linkinwater, Ralph and Squeers attempt to reclaim Smike by presenting forged documents that he is the long-lost son of a man named Snawley (who, in actuality, is a friend of Squeers with children at Dotheboys Hall). Smike refuses to go, but the threat of legal action remains. While at work, Nicholas encounters the beautiful young woman he had seen in the employment office and realises he is in love with her. The brothers tell him that her name is Madeline Bray, the penniless daughter of a debtor, Walter Bray, and enlist his help in obtaining small sums of money for her by commissioning her artwork, the only way they can help her due to her tyrannical father. Arthur Gride, an elderly miser, offers to pay a debt Ralph is owed by Walter Bray in exchange for the moneylender’s help. Gride has illegally gained possession of the will of Madeline’s grandfather, and she will become an heiress upon the event of her marriage.

The two moneylenders convince Bray to bully his daughter into accepting the disgusting Gride as a husband with the promise of paying off his debts. Ralph is not aware of Nicholas’ involvement with the Brays, and Nicholas does not discover Ralph’s scheme until the eve of the wedding. He appeals to Madeline to cancel the wedding, but despite her feelings for Nicholas, she is too devoted to her dying father to go against his wishes. On the day of the wedding, Nicholas attempts to stop it once more but his efforts prove academic when Bray, guilt-ridden at the sacrifice his daughter has made for him, dies unexpectedly. Madeline thus has no reason to marry Gride and Nicholas and Kate take her to their house to recover. Smike has contracted tuberculosis and become dangerously ill. In a last attempt to save his friend’s health, Nicholas takes him to his childhood home in Devonshire, but Smike’s health rapidly deteriorates. On his deathbed, Smike is startled to see the man who brought him to Squeers' school. Nicholas dismisses it as an illusion but it is later revealed that Smike was right. After confessing his love for Kate, Smike dies peacefully in Nicholas’s arms.

When they return to Gride’s home after the aborted wedding, Ralph and Gride discover that Peg Sliderskew, Gride’s aged housekeeper, has robbed Gride, taking, amongst other things, the will. To get it back, Ralph enlists Wackford Squeers’s services to track down Peg. Noggs discovers this plot, and with the help of Frank Cheeryble, he is able to recover the will and have Squeers arrested. The breaking up at Dotheboys Hall The Cheeryble brothers confront Ralph, informing him that his various schemes against Nicholas have failed. They advise him to retire from London before charges are brought up against him, as Squeers is determined to confess all and implicate Ralph. He refuses their help, but is summoned back to their offices that evening and told that Smike is dead. When he reacts to the news with vicious glee, the brothers reveal their final card. The beggar Brooker emerges, and tells Ralph that Smike was his own son. As a young man, Ralph had married a woman for her fortune, but kept it secret so as to not forfeit her inheritance.

She eventually left him after bearing him a son, who he entrusted to Brooker, who was then his clerk. Brooker, taking the opportunity for vengeance, took the boy to Squeers’ school and told Ralph the boy had died. Brooker now repents his action, but a transportation sentence kept him from putting the matter right. Devastated at the thought that his only son died as the best friend of his greatest enemy, Ralph commits suicide. Squeers is sentenced to transportation to Australia, and, upon hearing this, the boys at Dotheboys Hall rebel against the Squeers family and escape with the assistance of John Browdie. Nicholas becomes a partner in the Cheerybles' firm and marries Madeline. Kate and Frank Cheeryble also marry, as do Tim Linkinwater and Miss LaCreevy. Brooker dies penitent. Noggs recovers his respectability. The Nicklebys and their now extended family return to Devonshire, where they live in peace and contentment. Major characters As in most of Dickens ’ works, there is a sprawling number of characters in the book.

The major characters in Nicholas Nickleby include: The Nickleby Family Nicholas Nickleby: The hero of the novel. His father has died and left Nicholas and his family penniless. Nicholas is not a typical hero: he can be violent, naіve, and emotional. In his preface to the novel, Dickens writes "There is only one other point, on which I would desire to offer a remark. If Nicholas be not always found to be blameless or agreeable, he is not always intended to appear so. He is a young man of an impetuous temper and of little or no experience; and I saw no reason why such a hero should be lifted out of nature." He devotes himself primarily to his friends and family and fiercely defies those who wrong the ones he loves. Ralph Nickleby: The book’s principal antagonist , Nicholas’s uncle. He seems to care about nothing but money and takes an immediate dislike to the idealistic Nicholas, however; he does harbour something of a soft spot for Kate. Ralph’s anger at Nicholas’s beating of Wackford Squeers leads to a vow to destroy the younger man, but the only man Ralph ends up destroying is himself.

When it is revealed that Smike was his son, and that the boy died hating him, he takes his own life. Kate Nickleby: Nicholas's younger sister. Kate is a fairly passive character, typical of Dickensian women, but she shares some of her brother’s fortitude and strong will. She does not blanch at hard labour to earn her keep and defends herself against the lecherous Sir Mulberry Hawk. She finds well-deserved happiness with Frank Cheeryble. Mrs Nickleby: Nicholas and Kate’s mother, who provides much of the novel’s comic relief. The muddleheaded Mrs Nickleby does not see the true evil her children encounter until it is directly pointed out to her. She is stubborn, prone to long digressions on irrelevant or unimportant topics and unrealistic fantasies, and displays an often vague grasp of what is going on around her. Associates of Ralph Nickleby Newman Noggs: Ralph’s clerk , who becomes Nicholas’s devoted friend. He was once a businessman of high standing but went bankrupt. He is an alcoholic , and his general good nature and insight into human nature is hidden under a veneer of irrational tics and erratic behaviour.

Sir Mulberry Hawk: Is a lecherous nobleman who has taken Lord Verisopht under his wing. One of the most truly evil characters in the novel, he forces himself upon Kate and pursues her solely to humiliate her after she rejects him. He is beaten by Nicholas, and swears revenge, but nothing comes of it. He kills Lord Frederick in a duel and must flee to France, where he lives in luxury until he runs out of money, eventually returning to England and dying in debtors prison. Lord Frederick Verisopht: Hawk’s friend and dupe, a rich young nobleman. He owes both Ralph and Sir Mulberry vast sums of money. He becomes infatuated with Kate and is manipulated by Hawk into finding her whereabouts. After Nicholas confronts them in a coffeehouse, Lord Frederick sees the error of his ways and threatens Hawk if he attempts retaliation for the injuries Nicholas caused him. This quarrel eventually leads to a physical fight, which ends in a duel in which Lord Frederick is killed. Mr Pluck and Mr Pyke: Hangers-on to Hawk and Verisopht. They are never seen apart and are quite indistinguishable from one another.

Pluck and Pyke are intelligent, sly and dapper, perfect to do Hawk’s dirty work for him. Arthur Gride: An elderly associate of Ralph. Miserly to a fault, he lives in a large, empty house extremely frugally, despite his vast wealth. He gains possession of the will of Madeline's grandfather, and attempts to cheat her out of her fortune by marrying her. He is cowardly, servile and greedy, with no redeeming characteristics whatsoever. Peg Sliderskew: Gride’s elderly housekeeper. Very deaf and going senile, she ends up playing a large part in the denouement when she steals Madeline’s grandfather’s will. Brooker: An old beggar. A mysterious figure who appears several times during the novel, we eventually find out that he was formerly Ralph’s clerk. He was responsible for bringing Ralph’s son (Smike) to Dotheboys Hall. An ex-convict, he returns to extort money from Ralph with the information his son is alive. When that fails, he goes to Noggs, and eventually brings his story to light. Yorkshire Smike: A poor drudge living in Squeers’s "care".

Smike is a pathetic figure, perpetually ill and somewhat dim-witted, who has been in Squeers’s care since he was very young. Nicholas gives him the courage to run away, but when that fails Nicholas saves him again and the two become best friends. He falls in love with Kate, but his heart is broken when she falls in love with Frank Cheeryble. After Smike dies of "a dread disease " ( tuberculosis ), it is revealed that he is Ralph Nickleby’s son. Wackford Squeers: A cruel, one-eyed, Yorkshire "schoolmaster". He runs Dotheboys Hall, a place where unwanted children can be sent. He mistreats the boys horribly, starving them and beating them regularly. He gets his comeuppance at the hands of Nicholas when he is beaten in retaliation for the whipping of Smike. He travels to London after he recovers and partakes in more bad business, fulfilling his grudge against Nicholas by becoming a close partner in Ralph’s schemes to fake Smike’s parentage and later to hide the will of Madeline Bray. He is arrested during the last of these tasks and sentenced to transportation to Australia.

Dickens insisted that Squeers was based not on an individual Yorkshire schoolmaster but was a composite of several he had met while visiting the county to investigate such establishments for himself, with the "object [of] calling public attention to the system." However literary critic and author Cumberland Clark (1862-1941) notes that Dickens's denial was prompted by fear of libel, and that the inspiration for the character was in fact William Shaw, of William Shaw's Academy, Bowes . [2] Clark notes a court case brought against Shaw by the parents of a boy blinded through neglect while at the school, in which the description of the premises matches closely that in the novel. [3] A surviving example of Shaw's business card is compared to that offered by Squeers in the novel, and the real-life wording is shown to match that used by Dickens. [4] Shaw's descendent Ted Shaw is now president of the Dickens Fellowship and he claims that Dickens had "sensationalised and exaggerated the facts". [5] Mrs Squeers: Squeers' formidable wife. She is even more cruel and less affectionate than her husband to the boys in their care.

She dislikes Nicholas on sight and attempts to make his life at Dotheboys Hall as difficult as possible. Fanny Squeers: The Squeers’ daughter. She is 23, unattractive and ill-tempered and is beginning to feel the pressure to find a man to settle down with. She falls in love with Nicholas until he bluntly rebuffs her affections, at which point she does an about-face and openly hates him. Tilda Price (later Browdie) is her best friend, but the relationship is strained by Fanny’s pride and spitefulness. She is full of bluster and is under severe delusions about her own beauty and station. Young Wackford Squeers: The Squeers' loutish son. His parents dote on him, and he is very fat as a result of their spoiling him. He is mainly preoccupied with filling his belly as often as he can and bullying his father’s boys, to his father’s great pride. John Browdie: A bluff Yorkshire corn merchant, Tilda’s fiancé, later her husband. Although he and Nicholas get off on the wrong foot, they become good friends when John helps Nicholas escape from Yorkshire.

He later rescues Smike from Squeers again, proving himself a resourceful and intelligent ally. Matilda Price (Browdie): Fanny’s best friend and Browdie’s fiancée; she goes by the name of Tilda. A pretty girl of 18, she puts up with Fanny’s pettiness because of their childhood friendship, but later breaks with her. She is rather coquettish, but settles down happily with John Browdie. Phib (Phoebe): Maid of the Squeers. She is extremely shy and despises Mr and Mrs Squeers, but she does get on with Fanny. She tries to do the right thing. Around London Miss La Creevy: The Nicklebys' landlady. A small, kindly (if somewhat ridiculous) woman in her fifties, she is a miniature-portrait painter. She is the first friend the Nicklebys make in London, and one of the truest. She is rewarded for her good-heartedness when she falls in love with Tim Linkinwater. Mr Snawley: An oil merchant who puts his two stepsons in Squeers's "care".

He pretends to be Smike’s father to help Squeers get back at Nicholas but, when pursued by the Cheerybles, cracks under the pressure and eventually confesses everything. Mr and Madame Mantalini: Milliners, Kate’s employers. Mantalini (real name Alfred Muntle) is a handsome man, with a large bushy black mustache, who lives off his wife. He is not above stealing from his wife and dramatically threatens to kill himself when he does not get his way. Madame Mantalini is much older than her husband and equally prone to dramatics. She eventually gets wise and leaves him, but not until he has ruined her with extravagant spending and she is forced to sell the business to Miss Knag. Mantalini is seen again at the end of the book living in much reduced circumstances, romantically tied to a washerwoman, but still up to his old tricks. Miss Knag: Mrs Mantalini’s right-hand woman and the chief assistant in the showroom. Miss Knag is well into middle age but is under the impression that she is exceptionally beautiful.

When Kate begins her employment with the Mantalinis, Miss Knag is quite kind to her because the younger woman is clumsy, making herself look more accomplished. When her age is insulted by a disgruntled customer who prefers Kate, she blames Kate and ostracises her. She takes over the business when the Mantalinis go bankrupt, immediately firing Kate. A spinster, she lives with her brother Mortimer, a failed novelist. The Kenwigs family: Newman Noggs’s neighbours. Mr and Mrs Kenwigs are dependent on the latter’s wealthy uncle Mr Lillyvick, and everything they do is designed to please him so he will not write their children (including their baby, named Lillyvick) out of his will. Their daughter Morleena is an awkward child of seven. The family and their acquaintances are described by Dickens as "exceptionally common." Mr Lillyvick: Mrs Kenwigs' uncle. He is a collector of the water rate, a position which gives him great importance among his poor relatives. They bend over backwards to please him, and he is completely used to getting his way. He falls in love with Miss Petowker and marries her, to the Kenwigs' great distress.

When she elopes with another man, he comes back to his family a sadder but wiser man. Henrietta Petowker: Of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane . A minor actress with a prestigious company, though a major star with the less well-known Crummles troupe. Mrs Crummles' protégée. She marries Mr Lillyvick after meeting him at the Kenwigs’ wedding anniversary party, but leaves him within a year for another man. Henry and Julia Wittiterly: A wealthy, social-climbing couple who employ Kate as a companion to Mrs Wittiterly. Mrs Wittiterly is a hypochondriac who acts as if a feather would knock her over, but she has a fierce temper when she does not get her way. Mr Wittiterly flatters his wife and toadies to her every whim. They are oblivious to the degradation Kate is submitted to under their noses, only concerned that they are being visited by noblemen. Charles and Ned Cheeryble: Twin brothers, wealthy merchants who are as magnanimous as they are jovial. They give Nicholas a job and provide for his family, and become key figures in the turning about of the happy ending.

Like Pluck and Pyke, they are fairly interchangeable. Frank Cheeryble: Ned and Charles’s nephew, who is just as open-hearted as his uncles. He shares Nicholas’s streak of anger when his sense of chivalry is roused. He falls in love with Kate and later marries her. Madeline Bray: A beautiful but destitute young woman. Proud and dutiful to her father, she is willing to throw her life away for him. Nicholas falls in love at first sight, and she comes to feel the same way. Walter Bray: Madeline’s father, formerly a handsome gentleman. He is an extremely selfish man who has wasted his wife’s fortune and is dying in a debtor’s prison, owing vast sums of money to both Ralph and Gride. He fools himself that he is acting for the benefit of his daughter by agreeing to her marriage with Gride, but when he realises what he has done, he dies of grief before the marriage goes through, freeing Madeline from her obligations. Tim Linkinwater: The brother Cheerybles' devoted clerk. An elderly, stout, pleasant gentleman, he is jokingly referred to by the Brothers as "a Fierce Lion".

He is prone to hyperbole . He finds happiness with Miss La Creevy. The Crummles Troupe Mr Vincent Crummles: Head of the Crummles theatre troupe , a larger-than-life actor-manager who takes Nicholas under his wing. He takes great pride in his profession, but also sometimes yearns for a quieter life settled down with his wife and children. Eventually, he and his family take their act to America to pursue greater success on the theatrical stage. Mrs Crummles: Mr Crummles's wife. A formidable but loving presence in the company, she is a great diva, but Dickens leaves the question of her actual ability up to the reader. Miss Ninetta Crummles, The "Infant Phenomenon":, Mr and Mrs Crummles daughter. She is a very prominent member of the Crummles troupe, and a dancing part is written for her in every performance, even if there is no place for it. She is supposedly ten years old, but is actually closer to eighteen, having been kept on a steady diet of gin to keep her looking young. Mr Folair: A pantomimist with the Crummles company.

He is an apt flatterer but does not hesitate to say exactly what he thinks of people once their backs are turned. Miss Snevellicci: The talented leading lady of the Crummles troupe. She and Nicholas flirt heavily, and there is a mutual attraction, but nothing comes of it. She eventually leaves the troupe to get married. Mr Lenville: A melodramatic, self-centred tragedian, who becomes jealous of the attention Nicholas is getting as an actor, and attempts to pull his nose in front of the company, an act which results in the actor himself being knocked down and his cane broken by Nicholas. Literary significance & criticism This section requires expansion . (September 2008) While some consider the book to be among the finest works of 19th century comedy, Nicholas Nickleby is occasionally criticised for its lack of character development. [6] Theatre adaptation Main article: The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (play) The novel has been adapted for stage, film or television at least seven times.

Perhaps the most extraordinary version (from playwright David Edgar ) was created in 1980 when a large-scale stage production of the novel was performed in the West End by the Royal Shakespeare Company . It was a theatrical experience which lasted more than ten hours (counting intermissions and a dinner break - the actual playing time was approximately eight-and-a-half hours). The production received both critical and popular acclaim. All of the actors played multiple roles because of the huge number of characters, except for Roger Rees , who played Nicholas and David Threlfall who played Smike (due to the large amount of time they were on stage). The play moved to Broadway in 1981. In 1982 the RSC had the show recorded as three two-hour and one three-hour episodes for Channel 4 , where it became the channel's first drama. In 1983, it was shown on television in the United States, where it won an Emmy Award for Best Mini-Series. This version is currently available in the DVD format.

December 2007 saw a full re-broadcast of the TV version on BBC Four In 2006 Edgar prepared a shorter version for a production at the Chichester Festival , [7] which transferred in December 2007 and January 2008 to the Gielgud Theatre in the West End. [8] This version has been produced in the US by the California Shakespeare Festival, [9] Other theatre adaptations include Nicholas Nickleby - The Musical (2011), the musical Smike , the 1838 Nicholas Nickleby; or, Doings at Do-The-Boys Hall (premièred at the Adelphi Theatre and City of London Theatre , and featuring Mary Anne Keeley as Smike), an 1850s American version featuring Joseph Jefferson as Newman Noggs, and another in the late-19th century featuring Nellie Farren as Smike. An early theatrical version actually appeared before publication of the serialised novel was finished, with the resolution of the stage play wildly different from the finished novel.

Dickens' offence at his work being put onstage without his consent in a version he hated prompted him to have Nicholas encounter a "literary gentleman" in chapter forty-eight of the novel. The gentleman brags that he has dramatised two hundred and forty-seven novels "as fast as they had come out - in some cases faster than they had come out", and claims to thus have bestowed fame on their authors. In response Nicholas delivers a lengthy condemnation of the practice of adapting still-unfinished books without the author's permission, going so far as to say: If I were a writer of books, and you a thirsty dramatist, I would rather pay your tavern score for six months, large as it might be, than to have a niche in the Temple of Fame with you for the humblest corner of my pedestal, through six hundred generations —chapter 48. Main article: The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (film) In 1977, the BBC Television adapted the novel, directed by Christopher Barry and starring Nigel Havers in the title role, Derek Francis as Wackford Squeers and Patricia Routledge as Madame Mantalini.

In 2001, a new version for British television was directed by Stephen Whittaker , as The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. [10] An American silent version was made in 1903, and another silent film adaptation followed in 1912, featuring Victory Bateman as Miss La Creevey and Ethyle Cooke as Miss Snevellici. The first sound film adaptation was released in 1947 , starring Cedric Hardwicke as Ralph Nickleby, Sally Ann Howes as Kate, Derek Bond as Nicholas, and Stanley Holloway as Crummles. In 2002, another feature-length film of the story was released. It was directed by American director Douglas McGrath and its cast featured Charlie Hunnam , Anne Hathaway , Jamie Bell , Alan Cumming , Jim Broadbent , Christopher Plummer , Juliet Stevenson , Nathan Lane , Tom Courtenay and Barry Humphries . Mentions in popular culture In Roald Dahl 's story of The BFG , the Big Friendly Giant learns to write by reading the Dickens novel "hundreds of times".

Another character of Roald Dahl's, the headmistress Miss Trunchbull from Matilda , advocates Wackford Squeers' method of teaching as one that should be admired. In Evelyn Waugh 's A Handful of Dust , Nicholas Nickleby is one of several Dickens' novels Tony Last is forced to read to the psychotic Mr Todd as compensation for having his life saved by the latter. Ray Bradbury 's Any Friend of Nicholas Nickleby is a Friend of Mine features a man who pretends to be Dickens. Laurel McKelva Hand, the main character in Eudora Welty 's The Optimist's Daughter , reads Nicholas Nickleby to her father as he recuperates from eye surgery. In Star Trek: Enterprise , a 4th season 3-episode arc dealt with Dr. Arik Soong and his augmented test tube "children" that were remnants from the 1990s Eugenics War. An augment named Udar was shunned by his "siblings" because he didn't possess all of the same superior abilities that the rest were engineered with.

He was nicknamed Smike by his "siblings" because of his perceived shortcomings and was eventually killed by his "brother" Malik in the episode Cold Station 12 . Udar was played by actor Kaj-Erik Eriksen , and Dr. Arik Soong was played by Special Guest Star Brent Spiner . Publication Nicholas Nickleby was originally issued in 19 monthly numbers; the last was a double-number and cost two shillings instead of one.

Each number comprised 32 pages of text and two illustrations by Phiz : I - March 1838 (chapters 1-4); II - April 1838 (chapters 5-7); III - May 1838 (chapters 8-10); IV - June 1838 (chapters 11-14); V - July 1838 (chapters 15-17); VI - August 1838 (chapters 18-20); VII - September 1838 (chapters 21-23); VIII - October 1838 (chapters 24-26); IX - November 1838 (chapters 27-29); X - December 1838 (chapters 30-33); XI - January 1839 (chapters 34-36); XII - February 1839 (chapters 37-39); XIII - March 1839 (chapters 40-42); XIV - April 1839 (chapters

 43-45); XV - May 1839 (chapters 46-48); XVI - June 1839 (chapters 49-51); XVII - July 1839 (chapters 52-54); XVIII - August 1839 (chapters 55-58); XIX-XX - September 1839 (chapters 59-65).

References ^ Wilkinson, David N. & Emlyn Price “Charles Dickens's London”, The International Dickens Fellowship, London, 2009. ISBN 780955494339 ^ Clark, Cumberland (1918). Charles Dickens and the Yorkshire Schools. London: Chiswick Press. p. 11. OCLC 647194494 . ^ "Cheap schooling: Jones v. Shaw". The Morning Post : p. 2. 31 October 1823. ^ Clark (1918: 23–4) 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.

Question: Which is Charles Dickens' third published novel, its characters include: Madame Mantalini, Newman Noggs and Vincent Crummles?
Answer: Nicholas Nickleby