Charles DickensNicholas Nickleby‘…a faithfull account of the Fortunes,Misfortunes, Uprisings, Downfallings, andComplete Career of the Nickleby Family,’ ishow an advertisement of 1838 describedthe forthcoming story of Nicholas Nickleby.The story at that time was entitled The Lifeand Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby andwas, like all the other novels by CharlesDickens, published in monthly episodes, thefirst appearing on 31 March 1838, the lastin September 1839.The second child of the Dickens family,Charles was born on 7 February 1812 inPortsmouth.An intelligent young man, CharlesDickens particularly enjoyed reading workssuch as Smollett’s Roderick Random andFielding’s Tom Jones. These were both atleast partly in the picaresque tradition whichchronicles the travels and adventures of thehero together with a companion, usually ofinferior intellect and social status. Notsurprisingly then, Nicholas Nickleby, an earlywork by Dickens, is written in picaresquestyle, describing Nicholas’s adventures, oftenin the company of Smike.Although clever, young Dickens hadrather a disrupted education due to thefamily’s fluctuating finances. His father’sdebts resulted in the twelve-year-old Charleshaving to leave school and work in a shoeblackingfactory, and only later was he ableto return to education for a further twoand-a-half years. His mother would havepreferred him to remain at the factory, andit has been suggested that Dickens neverreally forgave her for this, and, as a result,based some of Mrs Nickleby’s less pleasantcharacteristics on her.The poverty and harshness experiencedby the young Nicholas Nickleby has beenseen by some as Dickens describing some ofhis own early experiences, and we may,indeed, view Nicholas as a partial self-portraitof Dickens. Born a gentleman, Nicholas hasto overcome adversity, in spite of a lack ofparental support, to finally achieve successand a comfortable life. However, Dickens’sown success was a rather more public one,since his episodes of Nicholas Nickleby werehugely popular, akin to the popularity of thesoap operas of today.The theme of the power of money isvery apparent in Nicholas Nickleby wherewe see money put to good use by theCheerybles, to bad use by Ralph Nicklebyand its lack causing problems for theMantalinis. Arthur Gride and Sir MulberryHawk are greedy for more, whilst theCrummles theatre group members have towork hard to earn theirs. However, one ofthe main aims for Dickens when writingNicholas Nickleby was to expose the crueltyof the notorious Yorkshire schools whichwere flourishing in the 1830s. In 1829young Charles was employed by theMorning Chronicle as their parliamentaryreporter, and his probing, journalistic skills,together with his philanthropic concerns,eventually resulted in this work whichhighlighted the plight of many unwantedchildren. On a visit to Yorkshire in January1838 Dickens witnessed their ill-treatmentin such schools and also saw the graves ofchildren who died as a result. One suchgrave was that of a nineteen-year-old youthon whom Dickens based the sad character,Smike. Mr Squeers, the headmaster ofDotheboys Hall, one of Dickens’s mostsuccessfully unpleasant characters, wasbased on one William Shaw, headmaster ofa school which, as a result of thepublication of Nicholas Nickleby, was forcedto close.Dickens chose humour as the vehicle forhis exposure of the cruelty of the schools,since he felt that this would lighten thehorrors of the awful reality. Consequently,Nicholas Nickleby is a very funny novel.Dickens’s choice of names for his charactersamuses us when we appreciate that, forexample, Miss Knag is, indeed, a nag, andthat Dotheboys Hall is a place where awfulthings are done to boys. The letter writtenby Fanny Squeers to Ralph Nickleby hasbeen described as one of the most amusingpassages in English literature, whilst the teaparty where she pretends to be engaged toNicholas is a scene of much amusement.Dickens’s description of Fanny, a plain girlwith an unpleasant nature, in terms moresuited to a romantic heroine, is another ofhis comic touches, and many moreinstances of comedy are found throughoutthe story.Dickens’s journalistic skills, such as hisability to use language effectively, and hisattention to detail, are evident in NicholasNickleby. At times he describes at lengthand in depth, at others he conveys vividmeaning through judicious choice of asingle word or a short phrase. His use ofimagery is also very effective, whilst heconveys information about his charactersthrough those characters’ use of language,for example Newman Noggs speaking inshort bursts and incomplete sentences, andthe Crummles players’ use of theatricallanguage.The theatre played a prominent part inCharles Dickens’s life, and Nicholas Nicklebywas dedicated to his friend andShakespearean actor, Charles Macready.Dickens himself enjoyed amateur dramatics,and he also became romantically linked withan actress, Ellen Ternan. In 1858 thisresulted in separation from his wife Kate, towhom he had been married for twenty-twoyears and with whom he had ten children.The inclusion of Vincent Crummles’stheatrical troupe in Dickens’s novel is,therefore, not surprising.Giving public readings of his novels wasanother way in which Dickens enjoyedperforming, and many people havesuggested that he actually wore himself outdoing so. He died on 9 June 1870 and wasburied in Poets’ Corner in WestminsterAbbey.During his lifetime Dickens was a prolificnovelist. Following the publication of ThePickwick Papers in 1836-7, Oliver Twist in1837 and then Nicholas Nickleby, heproduced The Old Curiosity Shop in 1840-41, Barnaby Rudge in 1841, A ChristmasCarol in 1843, Martin Chuzzlewit in 1843-44, Dombey and Son in 1846-48, and DavidCopperfield in 1849-50. Bleak Housefollowed in 1852-53, Hard Times in 1854,Little Dorrit in 1855-57, A Tale of Two Citiesin 1859, Great Expectations in 1860-61 andOur Mutual Friend in 1864-65, whilst at thetime of his death Dickens was working onThe Mystery of Edwin Drood.Notes by Helen Davies