Nicholas Nickleby: Charles Dickens

`A revelation ... as well as being sympathetic to the plight of children, it is hilarious` A. N. Wilson

The hero of Dickens`s flamboyantly exuberant novel, Nicholas Nickleby, is left penniless after his father`s death and forced to make his own way in the world. His adventures give Dickens the opportunity to portray an extraordinary gallery of rogues and eccentrics: Wackford Squeers, the tyrannical headmaster of Dotheboys Hall; the tragic orphan Smike, rescued by Nicholas; and the gloriously theatrical Mr and Mrs Crummle and their daughter, the `infant phenomenon`. Nicholas Nickleby is characterized by Dickens`s outrage at social injustice, but it also reveals his comic genius at its most unerring.