However, as Mark Ford writes in his Introduction to this new Penguin Classics edition, it is precisely these anxieties that 'Nicholas Nickleby so often succeeds in transfiguring. Nicholas Nickleby' s loose, haphazard progress harks back to the picaresque novels of the eighteenth century - particularly those of Smollett and Fielding - yet the novel' s exuberant atmosphere of romance, adventure, and freedom is overshadowed by Dickens' awareness of social ills and financial and class insecurity.

Nickleby, the gloriously theatrical Crummles, their protegee Miss Petowker, the pretentious Mantalinis, and the mindlessly cruel Squeers and his wife. '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 Around the central story of Nicholas Nickleby and the misfortunes of his family Dickens created some of his most wonderful characters: the muddle-headed Mrs. If you enjoyed Nicholas Nickleby, you might like Dickens's David Copperfield, also available in Penguin Classics. His most famous books, including Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield and The Pickwick Papers, have been adapted for stage and screen and read by millions. Charles Dickens is one of the best-loved novelists in the English language, whose 200th anniversary was celebrated in 2012. This edition includes the original illustrations by 'Phiz', Dickens's original preface to the work, a chronology and a list of further reading. In his introduction Mark Ford compares Nicholas Nickleby to eighteenth-century picaresque novels, and examines Dickens's criticism of the 'Yorkshire schools', his social satire and use of language. Like many of Dickens's novels, Nicholas Nickleby is characterised by his outrage at cruelty and social injustice, but it is also a flamboyantly exuberant work, whose loose, haphazard progress harks back to the picaresque novels of Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding. His adventures gave Dickens the opportunity to portray an extraordinary gallery of rogues and eccentrics- Wackford Squeers, the tyrannical headmaster of Dotheboys Hall, a school for unwanted boys, the slow-witted orphan Smike, rescued by Nicholas, the pretentious Mantalinis and the gloriously theatrical Mr and Mrs Crummels and their daughter, the 'infant phenomenon'.

But Ralph Nickleby proves both hard-hearted and unscrupulous, and Nicholas finds himself forced to make his own way in the world. When Nicholas Nickleby is left penniless after his father's death, he appeals to his wealthy uncle to help him find work and to protect his mother and sister.

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