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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Nicholas Nickleby
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(The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby 1839)
Novel by *Dickens with illustrations by *Phiz, published in monthly parts from April 1838. It describes the attempts of Nicholas and his sister Kate to make their way in life after their father has died and left them penniless. Nicholas teaches at an appalling school (Dotheboys Hall, where Wackford Squeers is headmaster) from which he escapes, taking with him a devoted halfwit, Smike. Together they find work with a tenth-rate but endearing theatrical company, headed by Vincent Crummles and starring his 15-year-old daughter as the Infant Phenomenon.
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Meanwhile Kate has been apprenticed to a dressmaker, Madame Mantalini, but improper approaches are made to her by colleagues of her uncle, Ralph Nickleby, a crooked financier and the real villain of the story. Nicholas, after finding work with the honest Cheeryble brothers, frustrates his uncle's various schemes. Smike, who dies of tuberculosis, turns out to have been Ralph Nickleby's son – a revelation which causes Ralph to commit suicide.
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Loosely structured, and prone to melodrama and sentiment, the novel lives by its gallery of rich characters – among them the endlessly talkative Mrs Nickleby, mother of Nicholas and Kate. A dramatization of the novel in 1980 was one of the great successes of the *Royal Shakespeare Company.
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