Description

Published in serial form between 1838 and 1839, Nicholas Nickleby is the tale of a young man forced to grow up and face the world in all of its wild and raucous variety. Nicholas loses his father and becomes the man of his family. As such, he must help provide for his mother and sister. He takes a job as an assistant at what appears to be a respectable boys' school, not realizing that the "school" is a miserable institution where children are ill-treated and receive no education. Fed up with the horrors of the school, Nicholas seizes a moment's opportunity and escapes. He happens upon a traveling showman, who hires him to assist with his troupe's performances. Nicholas believes his troubles are over, but as any experienced reader of Dickens knows, life is never so simple. Full of adventure, comedy, and delightful intrigue, Nicholas Nickleby is one of Dickens's most celebrated works, beloved by generations for its color, whimsy, and spirit.

About the Author

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was uniquely successful as a writer during his lifetime, enjoying huge followings from readers and audiences in England and America. When, early in life, sudden misfortune sent his family into extreme poverty, the young Charles was sent to work in a factory. Never forgetting this childhood misery, Dickens wrote often in later life about the plights of the working poor. As a young man he became a law clerk and stenographer, moving into journalism in the 1830s. Dickens's early journalistic sketches formed the basis for his first literary works. With the 1836 serialized publication of The Pickwick Papers, his unparalleled success as an author began. Dickens went on to write such famous novels as David Copperfield, Great Expectations, Barnaby Rudge, Hard Times, and Bleak House, with all of his works remaining in print to this day.

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Opening Lines (Experimental)

This story was begun, within a few months after the publication of the completed "Pickwick Papers." There were, then, a good many cheap Yorkshire schools in existence. There are very few now.
Of the monstrous neglect of education in England, and the disregard of it by the State as a means of ...