Nicholas Nickleby is a marvelous novel. It is the young Dickens at his best. I almost feel guilty for giving it four stars, but giving it five would be unfair, I think, because his later works, such as Great Expectations, are bettter. The novel is written enthusiastically and contains some of Dickens' best humor. I especially found funny the character Mr.Lillyvick, the revered and dignified water clerk. And I will never forget Ralph Nickleby. Mr.Squeers and Arthur Gride were detestable and colorful villains, but they pale before Ralph Nickleby. He is such a cold and heartless character that he steals nearly every scene he is in. He has a certain magnetism that most of Dickens' good characters lack. And his suicide at the novel's end is so perfectly written that I read over it several times before I finished the novel. My only problem with the book was Nicholas's lack of psychology, but let us remember that this was written by a young man, not the mature artist of Great Expectations and Our Mutual Friend. The novel's strengths easily make up for its weaknesses. Nicholas Nickleby will be enjoyed by fans of Dickens and all other readers for centuries to come.

• Classic Novel
• 3996 pages / 65 chapters (the trial contains 984 pages / 16 chapters)
• 690kb in size (trial: 187kb)
• published/edited by dmdSOFTWARE.NET
• year of publication 2002
• by Charles Dickens
• written in 1850

  I had never read one of Dickens book before Nicholas Nickleby, though I had always wanted to. I particularly enjoyed this book because of Dicken's subtle sense of humor and colorful characters. It was easy to hate the villains such as Squeers or Ralph Nickleby, and laugh at the amusing chracters of Mr. Mantalini and John Brody(whom I found to be the funniest) Authenticity of personality and speech allows you to connect with the various chracters. Although he was probably the least complex, my favorite was Smike, the pitiful victim of the Yorkshire schools of the 1800s. The one drawback was the size of this book. Dickens spent much time giving detail of many places and people (and did a good job of it), but we must draw the line somewhere. Just when one thinks enough words have been spent on one topic, it diverges into yet another irrevelant matter. I'd recommend this book to almost anyone, unless you have a great fear of commitment. But the book has plenty of plot and satire to hold you to the end. I certainly was, but I don't think my librarian would believe me.

  Again and again I had the sense of a young writer reveling in his powers -- his creation of a teeming multitude of characters and their antics and adventures, his magical use of classic rhetorical tropes (such as metonymy, irony of various types, etc.), his ringing of many emotional notes. One feels that Dickens must have been amazed and delighted by his own profuse gifts. I'd hope that many people would read this book while they themselves are young!

  As has been said by someone before, I believe, one doesn't learn much that is new from Dickens, but one encounters a prodigious range of events and persons that relate to the universal experiences of human life -- of being bullied or being a bully, of being too trusting or not trusting enough, of having to resolve conflicting duties, and much more.

  I started reading Dickens about 25 years ago & only recently got to this one, and found it even better than I expected it to be.

  I read criticisms of this book that it is not one of Dickens' best. For me, it is up there with Great Expectations and David Copperfield as one of his most enjoyable novels (A Christmas Carol is a short story).

  The social axe that Dickens had to grind in this story is man's injustice to children. Modern readers my feel that his depiction of Dotheboys Academy is too melodramatic. Alas, unfortunately, it was all too real. Charles Dickens helped create a world where we can't believe that such things happen. Dickens even tell us in an introduction that several Yorkshire schoolmasters were sure that Wackford Squeers was based on them and threatened legal action.

  The plot of Nicholas Nickleby is a miracle of invention. It is nothing more than a series of adventures, in which Nicholas tries to make his way in the world, separate himself from his evil uncle, and try to provide for his mother and sister.

  There are no unintersting characters in Dickens. Each one is almost a charicature. This book contains some of his funniest characters.

  To say this is a melodrama is not an insult. This is melodrama at its best. Its a long book, but a fast read.