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Nicholas Nickleby

Charles Dickens

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Nov 29, 2024 Werner rated it really liked it

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Dickens' third novel, this one was requested by his publishers to be a humorous one, of the same sort as his first book, The Pickwick Papers (which had been a great success with the reading public). It was published serially from 1838-39 (the early parts being written at the same time as the later parts of Oliver Twist). In the final chapter, however, it's made clear that the omniscient, third-person narrator is looking back on the main action of the tale from the vantage point of at least a dec Dickens' third novel, this one was requested by his publishers to be a humorous one, of the same sort as his first book, The Pickwick Papers (which had been a great success with the reading public). It was published serially from 1838-39 (the early parts being written at the same time as the later parts of Oliver Twist). In the final chapter, however, it's made clear that the omniscient, third-person narrator is looking back on the main action of the tale from the vantage point of at least a decade or so; so we can picture the bulk of the events taking place around the later 1820s, with the stage-setting description in the first chapter of the preceding developments in the two Nickleby generations before our title character's career unfolding mostly in the later 18th century and the early 1800s.

At the point where the main plot thread begins, our hero Nicholas is around 19, educated through what would be the equivalent of high school in the modern U.S., and the son of a gentleman in Devonshire, in southwestern England. However, his father has recently died in debt, as a result of unwise business speculations to which he was egged on by his wife; and the family's property has been seized by the creditors, leaving Nicholas to provide for his widowed mother and his slightly younger sister Kate. They make their way to London, where the late Mr. Nickleby's only brother Ralph lives. He's a very wealthy man, having become so through decades of shady business dealings and money lending at extortionate interest. But he's also a very miserly and selfish one, who moreover takes an immediate dislike to Nicholas, so whatever “assistance” the family gets from him will be little and dubious. So Nicholas and Kate will need to make their way on their own native resources, and the aid of Providence (which, as a Christian, Dickens definitely doesn't discount!). Along the way, they'll meet a gallery of superbly-drawn characters, including some of British literature's nastiest (Ralph being the principal –but far from only!-- villain), but also some of its nicest. Our journeying with them will take us to both the higher and lower levels of London's social world, and the gradations between (with side trips to Yorkshire and Portsmouth); and expose us to the workings of great evil and great goodness; plot elements will include romance, a duel, a hidden will, and concealed identity.

Many readers may not know that Dickens had a lifelong love for the world of the theater. As a young man, he almost went into acting as a career; all his life, he wrote plays, enjoyed producing and acting in amateur theatricals, attended plays often, and had theatrical folk such as the leading Shakespearean actor William Charles Macready as friends. This is perhaps the novel that reflects that aspect of his personality and interests the most, through the vivid portrayal of Vincent Crummles and his acting troupe, of which Nicholas will be a part for a while, and its milieu (warts and all). Dickens' passion for the betterment of society, and his hatred of cruelty and injustice, also finds a strong outlet here, particularly in his graphic exposure of the horrors of the cheap Yorkshire boarding schools of that day. Upper and middle-class British families had long had a tradition of sending their kids to boarding schools (and apparently still do); but by the late 18th century, lack of regulation and the desires of some of the wealthy to make out-of-wedlock or unwanted children or step-children disappear had led to the creation of fraudulent “schools” that served simply as dumping grounds for imprisoning their unfortunate charges, who were subjected to systematic privation and neglect so that the “educators” could cut overhead and maximize profit. (They also preyed on some well-meaning parents who didn't have a clue about what was really going on.) Prior to writing this novel, the author had made a trip to Yorkshire to check these institutions out personally; Dotheboys Hall (where Nicholas will put in a stint as an assistant teacher) was the result. As Dickens noted in his Preface to the second edition of the completed novel, by the time it went to press, the furor occasioned by this portrayal had largely swept most of these “schools” out of existence. By his own statement there, Wackford Squeers, the monstrous “schoolmaster” at Dotheboys, was a composite of more than one real-life model (the main ingredient in that particular stew, though, is thought with good reason to be the notorious William Shaw); and Dickens knew of some real-life atrocities even worse than the ones in the book.

Given that his publishers wanted a humorous work, it's no surprise that this one has many passages that give free rein to Dickens' comedic genius; I laughed or snickered out loud more than once in my reading. But as my comments above have already indicated, this novel also has its very serious side, with moral and social messages delivered in earnest, and evocations of very real (and realistically depicted) hardship and tragedy. As is often the case with Dickens, humor coexists with pathos, and the former may provide a needed relief for the latter. Like his two preceding novels, this is also one that the author began without any definite plan, though it doesn't have the purely episodic structure of The Pickwick Papers, and unlike Oliver Twist (which started its serialization as a series of sketches, but quickly evolved into a novel) was always meant to be a novel. Exactly how the plot would develop, though, Dickens didn't know himself until he was fairly far along into the writing (which partially explains why he's still introducing significant new characters relatively late in the book). For the most part, he wouldn't begin mapping out his novel's plots before he started writing until 1846, when he began Dombey and Son (A Christmas Carol may be an exception, but it's a novella). There are places here, in this very early novel, where we can see the young author (still in his 20s!) honing his craft. But for all that, he still manages, in the end, to tie together a complex plot, and his style here already has (as it does in Oliver Twist too) the basic strengths that would characterize his work all through his writing life.

I read this, like several other Dickens novels, in the Oxford Illustrated Dickens edition, this volume originally published in 1950, and including the original drawings by Dickens' friend “Phiz” (Hablot K. Browne). Besides the Preface cited above and a very brief mini-biography of the author, this edition provides an Introduction by Dame Sybil Thorndike (1882-1976), who was a distinguished British Shakespearean actress, perhaps chosen because of this novel's tie-in to the theater world, and obviously a Dickens fan. Her contribution here is mostly an appreciation of the author, and is worth reading –but as an afterword, not an introduction, since it has plot spoilers!

At over 830 pages, this is a long novel, but worth the investment of time it requires. (I read it as a group read with the Goodreads group Dickensians! https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/... , and their detailed discussion threads are a recommended resource for readers.) It's not as great a work as some other Dickens novels, mainly because although it's deeply concerned with the contrasts between good and evil, right and wrong, and does show characters in places choosing to do the right thing, for those who do so it isn't a felt struggle. The nature of what's good and right is assumed, correctly but without good characters having to grapple with it; and none of the characters are dynamic in the true sense. In that sense, this is “second-string” Dickens in comparison with some of his other work. But second-string Dickens is still a vastly better and more rewarding reading experience than the first string works of most authors at their best! ...more

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