Product Description

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Product Details

• Published on: 1997-07-01
• Released on: 1997-07-01
• Format: Kindle eBook
• Number of items: 1

Review
"The novel has everything: an absorbing melodrama, with a supporting cast of heroes, villains and eccentrics, set in a London where vast wealth and desperate poverty live cheek-by-jow."
--Jasper Rees, "The Times"

"Nicholas Nickleby was a revelation. Here was a school -- Dotheboy's Hall, with its grotesque headmaster, Wackford Squeers -- which was even worse than the prison camp to which my poor innocent parents had confined me! The story of Dotheboy's Hall seemed horribly familiar -- the beatings, the bad food. But here was something to which even a child could respond, As well as being sympathetic to the plight of the children, the author was hilarious."
--A.N. Wilson

From the Back Cover

'The novel has everything: an absorbing melodrama, with a supporting cast of heroes, villains and eccentrics, set in a London where vast wealth and desperate poverty live cheek-by-jowl' Jasper Rees, The Times

When Nicholas's father dies he, his mother and sister, Kate, are left penniless. The family seek help from his wealthy uncle Ralph, who takes an immediate dislike to his young nephew. While Kate is found work as a dressmaker, Nicholas is offered a position as a tutor at Dotheboys Hall but soon discovers that the headmaster, Wackford Squeers, is a grotesque ogre and that one boy in particular is struggling to survive his harsh regime.

In Charles Dickens' blackly comic masterpiece Nicholas embarks on an adventure that takes him from loathsome boarding schools to the London stage and confronts issues of neglect and cruelty.

See Also: Little Dorrit

About the Author
Charles Dickens was born on 7 February 1812 in Landport in Portsmouth. His father was a clerk in the Navy Pay Office who often ended up in financial trouble. When Dickens was twelve years' old he was sent to work in a shoe polish factory because his father had been imprisoned for debt.In 1833 he began to publish short stories and essays in newspapers and magazines. The Pickwick Papers, his first commercial success, was published in 1836, the same year that he married Catherine Hogarth. The serialisation of Oliver Twist began in 1837 while The Pickwick Papers was still running. Many other novels followed and Dickens became a celebrity in America as well as Britain. He also set up and edited the journals Household Words (1850-9) and All the Year Round (1859-70). Charles Dickens died on 9 June 1870 leaving his last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, unfinished. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.