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    The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby
    The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby
    The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby
    Audiobook30 hours

    The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby

    Written by Charles Dickens

    Narrated by Simon Vance

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby is closely modelled on the eighteenth-century novels that Charles Dickens loved as a child, such as Robinson Crusoe, in which the fortunes of a hero shape the plot. The likeable young Nicholas, left penniless on the death of his father, sets off in search of better prospects. His meandering route to happiness includes work as a teacher at Dotheboys Hall, where the brutal Wackford Squeers ill-treats his impoverished pupils, and a spell as an actor with the absurdly melodramatic Crummles troupe.

    Nicholas's many adventures give Dickens the freedom to follow the eccentricities of a vivid gallery of characters, exploring themes of class, love, and self-awareness with exuberant comedy and biting satire.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateDec 24, 2010
    ISBN9781452670249
    Author

    Charles Dickens

    Charles Dickens was born in 1812 and grew up in poverty. This experience influenced ‘Oliver Twist’, the second of his fourteen major novels, which first appeared in 1837. When he died in 1870, he was buried in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey as an indication of his huge popularity as a novelist, which endures to this day.

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    Reviews for The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby

    4/5

    59 ratings49 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Exquisite illustrations.
    • 5/5
      Nicholas's father left him, his sister, and his mother without a home or any money at all at his death, and so they seek help from a rich uncle, who turns out to be the great villain of the plot. Nicholas must seek his own fortune and meets an outstanding variety of characters along the way, who run the spectrum from angelic to despicable with plenty of comic relief in between. It reads like a Shakespearean comedy on a grand and intricate scale, complete with a coming-of-age story and multiple marriages at the end. I loved it. I absolutely loved it.
    • 2/5
      It's with a weary heart that I end my patient, obdurate reading of one of the great Victorian novels. Flowery syntax aside, let me confess that I meant, at many times, to abandon reading. The punctuation and epithet of this book was very trying to me. In the end, my unusual patience prevailed and I now declare that this was a not completely futile experience. It was justly so that the book ended where it did. Had I ditched this book I would be under the impression that all would end well. Alas it did not. Nicholas Nickleby would have earned 4 stars had the character called Smike - my fondest character in this book - not had a link with the Nicklebies. All grumblings aside, all imagined or inherent grievances aside, I wouldn't say no to a second Charles Dickens novel.
    • 5/5
      Verbose, meandering and even shallow, but full of Dickens genius for sarcastic humor and memorable characters.
    • 4/5
      Dickens 4th book, and 3rd novel, published in 1838-39 and cementing his speedy celebrity, Nickleby combines the angry social statements of Oliver Twist with something of the sense of sharp satire of The Pickwick Papers. True, neither Nicholas nor Kate exhibit much in the way of interesting features, but as Tintin-esque Everypeople, they are surrounded by a gallery of delightful characters. The Victorian pathos is there in spades, and some of it is really quite silly, but one can feel Dickens gaining such a sense of self-assuredness as he works through this novel, and the picaresque nature of Nickleby's travels will not be equalled by any of the other novels that feature extensive journeys. The acting troupe, the brutal world of Mantilini's dress shop, and the figure of Ralph Nickleby, who extends on Fagin's sparks of life to suggest that the author might one day be interested in creating characters with more than one-and-a-half dimensions.

      Excepting parts of Little Dorrit and David Copperfield, this is the Dickens novel that has the purest sense of fun, and combined with some of the powerful statements about the workhouse and the place of women, it's a very worthy read. To be honest, I think this is the height of the Dickens canon for several years, until Copperfield comes along.
    • 5/5
      Simon Vance (the narrator) was spectacular. He brings this story to life with all his amazing accents and love of each character. I was entranced.

      The story is over 180 years old and yet still as powerful as ever. The story is, after all, about human beings which will forever transcend time and space.
    • 4/5
      Great opening paragraph eases readers smoothly into the challenging life of Nicholas Nickleby.The plot moves gently along with lovely entries like "Snow Hill!" "coffee-rooms,""...for gold conjures up a mist about a man."and: "He had but one eye, and the popular prejudice runs in favor of two."Dickens weaves his humor into Nicholas' conversation as he exposes the vivid contrastsof the lives of the poor with the wanton material wealth of the rich.Unfortunately, he also proceeds to lapse us into catatonia with his muffins resolutions parody.But, what does Dickens have against Smike?!? His trials were painful to read,even when John Brodie brings actual comedy.This was welcome to both readers and to "...Nicholas sat down, so depressed and self-degraded by the consciousness of his position, that if death could have come upon himat that time, he would have been almost happy to meet it."Nicholas' words on Shakespeare were a true delight in the midst of the paid-by-wordserialization that made for some truly boring side plots.This is my favorite of all Dickens novels.
    • 3/5
      3.5 stars. Typical Dickens which I normally love but this was not one of my favorites. It is the first one that I listened to and it took me quite awhile to get through so I think I just never got fully engaged with it. Despite that an average book by Dickens is still really enjoyable. Good characters with a strong narrator made for some entertaining scenes.
    • 5/5
      Very entertaining and fast-moving, although quite fairy-tale like in places: Nicholas seemed to lead a charmed life. I particularly enjoyed his stint as an actor/playwright and most of his mother's speeches. The Cheerybles were too good to be true (did Nicholas ever do any real work for them), but handy for the resolution of the plot. I found Madeline to be very underwritten, and Smike's true identity came completely out of left-field, but it was such a romp that it didn't really matter.The potential fates of both Madeline and Kate, while realistic, seemed quite racy for a Victorian novel, especially as I have read of Dickens asking Trollope to alter things in his novels on morality grounds...
    • 5/5
      Great story. Great characters. Great author. And very great narrator!!!!
    • 2/5
      Not one of Dickens' strongest tales. I just couldn't make myself care much about Nicholas although I liked Kate a bit more. But his secondary characters were brilliant as usual -- Ralph Nickleby, Wackford Squeers, Smike, the Brothers Cheerfull -- all wonderful. But my favorite part was the happy ending for Linkinwater and Miss La Creevy in the final chapter -- a beautiful, sentimental, feel-good poignant passage.
    • 5/5
      One of the great books of English literature - so no need to bore you with a review. I loved it.
      Also - the unabridged audio read by Alex Jennings is nothing short of phenomenal.
    • 5/5
      This was a great read. Romance and evil villains and minor theatricals. A from rags-to-riches kind of tale. It was relaxing to read about a time where things moved only as fast as your feet (or your horses) and not faster than your brain can conceive of. If everyone today read a course of Dickens I think we'd be much less stressed out and more happy. Turn off your screens.
    • 2/5
      My fourth Dickens read, and maybe my second favorite, right behind David Copperfield. It's the same sort of traveling feast of characters as that and the Pickwick Papers, and the usual good vs. evil storyline. The secondary characters in this one are so good, though, that it makes up for some of the more formulaic aspects: La Creevy, John Browdie, Newman Noggs, and the deliciously good villains: "schoolmeasther" Squeers, Ralph Nickleby, and Arthur Gride. I don't remember if most Dickens books have such a great plot twist at the end as this one, but it was a good one!This might be the fastest I've ever read a Dickens novel: 15 days!
    • 5/5
      Q: Why, more than 140 years+ after his death is Charles Dickens still regarded as the greatest novelist the English language has ever seen?A: Because that is what he is.Nicholas Nickleby is a good illustration. I set myself to finish this - 776 pages in this edition - in a month; in the event it took twelve days. On most days, I only put it down because my eyes were throbbing from the small print.Of course, 776 pages is a lot of book but there is a lot of story; a lot happens to a lot of people. The reader must be given a chance to get to know these people if he is to a give a damn what happens to them. Dickens gives us this time; it is part of his art. He takes time, too, to describe people and places; remember that he wrote in the days before television, or newsreels, or even cheap picture-books. If he wanted the reader to know what something looked like, he had to describe it.To many, in this world where one death is a tragedy but a million deaths is a sound-bite, such a deliberate approach to story-telling will prove too taxing. To those with a more traditional attention span, it must simply add to the experience.And experience it is. Nickleby loses nothing with the passing of years. Dickens dealt, as do all great writers, with human nature and the real world. At root, neither changes. We are still afflicted with businessmen who know no morality beyond the p&l account; educationalists who substitute cant for understanding and choose to forget the humanity of their charges; gold diggers, cheats and frauds; and parents who care nothing for their children.Nicholas Nickleby was a page-turner in 1838 and it is a page-turner today. It has, by turns, villainy and romance, comedy and tragedy, sudden death and new beginnings. Truly, all human life is here.
    • 2/5
      I remember finding this one pretty tedious, although some of the characters intrigued me deeply.
    • 5/5
      What is not to love about Nicholas Nickleby? Everything you love in normal Dickens, plus righteous fisticuffs.
    • 5/5
      My favorite Dickens, partly because it helped close down abusive residential "Public Schools" like Mr Squeers'; this effective critique of education holds much appeal to a lifelong teacher whose critiques of education have had much less dramatic effect. The scenes from the North England Dotheby's Hall are both convincing in their detailed cruelty and devastating as satire. Nickleby rescues the handicapped (or "retarded") Smike and they both leave after Nicholas is driven to beating the sadistic headmaster. The complex plot also satirizes the semi-professional theater of the day, in the Dover company of Crummles that includes the "infant phenomenon"--reminiscent of our own child actors, like Justin Biber, whom nobody satirizes now. Nicholas is hired as juvenile male lead and playwright-adapter of French plays to their minimal acting skills. This is a lively, generous, myriad-plotted book that will engage and amuse any reader with sufficient time not to feel rushed and burdened--i.e., most readers not reading for a college class. Other strands include the millenary business which Nicholas's sister Kate works in, and the machinations of the cruel "rich uncle."
    • 4/5
      filled with Dickens usual chacaters, but it is very good
    • 4/5
      Before there was Scrooge, there was Ralph Nickleby. Years before “A Christmas Carol,” Charles Dickens had already created a character in “Nicholas Nickleby” who could have given Scrooge lessons in miserliness.The novel, published in 1838, opens with the death of Ralph's brother, making him responsible for his brother's widow and her two grown but not yet independent children, Nicholas and Kate. First he moves them into much more humble accommodations, then finds Nicholas a position as a tutor in a boy's school far from London. With the brother out of the way, he uses pretty Kate to entice two playboy noblemen into some business dealings, unmindful of what might happen to Kate afterward.Nicholas soon discovers the headmaster at the school to be abusive toward the boys in his care. He flees with one of those boys and finds himself for a time with a wandering theater group before learning of his sister's situation. When he returns to rescue her, a long struggle between uncle and nephew begins, with many complications and adventures.“Nicholas Nickleby” was not a successful novel in its day, at least in comparison with “Oliver Twist,” but it is hard to understand why. While it may not be one of the best novels Dickens wrote, it provides nonstop entertainment (except for one chapter that is obviously just padding and could be skipped without missing any of the story). It would make an excellent entry-level Dickens novel for those intimidated by that author's reputation for meandering plots and multitudes of characters. Here the plot rarely strays far from the Nicklebys, and the characters, while plentiful, are easy to keep straight. If the reader becomes confused about who a character is, Dickens soon enough makes it clear.This was one of the early Dickens novels. He was still learning the game he would soon master, but we can already find evidence of some of the writer's greatest personal interests and concerns, among them the plight of boys in schools operated for profit, young women coerced into careers in the sex trade and the theater, his greatest love, perhaps even including writing.There's humor here (Mrs. Nickleby ranks among his greatest comic characters), an abundance of romance (the clergy will have all the weddings they can handle by the end of the novel) and all the plot twists a reader could want. It's a massive novel, of course, but this is Dickens in an age when writers were paid for bulk. When a novel is this much fun, however, size is more blessing than curse.
    • 5/5
      I found Nicholas Nickelby to be a very entertaining book with lots of humor. It is a long book but holds your attention because of the quirky characters that Dickens is noted for. In Nicholas Nickelby, Dickens is showing us the social injustice mainly to children. The theme of good vs. evil is also very prevalent but in the end good is victorious and the novel finishes with the characters living happily ever after. I would recommend this novel to anyone who is interested in reading about Victorian England.
    • 4/5
      I liked this book even more than Great Expectations - maybe because I was reading it on the beach. Dickens creates such wonderful heroes and such funny conversation.
    • 3/5
      To be honest I found this a bit of a struggle, just because of the sheer length. Parts of the writing still felt exciting and relevant, but some of the side stories just felt like padding. I know, it's pretty pointless 'reviewing' Dickens, so I'll just leave it that I didn't enjoy this as much as Bleak House, the last Dickens I read.
    • 4/5
      My favorite Dickens read so far. Never thought I would find one that would surpass Great Expectations, but this one did. While Dickens continues to bring forth, in vivid strokes, the bleak and terrible realities of his time period, there is a vibrancy of melodrama - and a bit of a carnival spirit - that gives this story a more lighthearted feel. While I have only scratched the surface of Dickens' writings, I find that he has a flair for creating some rather interesting characters. As much as I despise Ralph Nickleby, his fierce and calculating business mind is something to marvel at. Mrs. Nickleby comes across as a bit of an aristocratic "ditzy" woman but even she makes the odd observation that made me hit rewind once or twice. Overall, one of the better Dickens reads for me - and redeems Dickens in view of how much I despised Bleak House - giving me the incentive to consider reading more of Dickens works.
    • 4/5
      A picaresque novel by Dickens gives us a smorgasboard of delightfully crafted characters. The good the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. Dickens tells the story of a widow and her two children who seek help from her deceased husband's brother and are treated meanly and stingily by him. A social commentary told through the characters in this book and the main character, Nicholas Nickleby is a young man who comes to age as he takes care of his mother and sister and is kind to others he encounters on the way. This is Dickens third novel and a episodic and humorous book and also a first for romance for Dickens.
    • 5/5
      I started re-reading Nicholas Nickleby thinking it was something like my 13th or 14th favorite Dickens novel (Hard Times has an uncontestable hold on 15th, or last, place). In reading the second quarter or so that judgment felt vindicated. After the excellent last half, however, I am starting to think I was unfair. Not that there are other obvious candidates one would want to downgrade.

      There is an unfair misunderstanding of Dickens that he wrote in a hurry, by the word, in serials, and that as a result his books are not well thought out integrated novels but instead one incident following another in a somewhat muddled progression. That is unfair for just about all of Dickens
    • 4/5
      I am glad I chose Nicholas Nickleby to be the first Dickens book to complete on my own (not counting the required 6th grade reading of A Christmas Carol). Sure, there's the downtrodden miserable children and nasty older men, but I didn't have the droopy feeling of depression I thought I'd feel while reading. Sometimes the story would go off tangent (the storytelling on the first journey to Yorkshire left me slightly impatient), but most books I've read written in the 19th century went that way. Besides, the story moved forward when it needed to. Once I'd learned to keep track of the vast cast of characters, it was just fine. Plus, (slight spoiler) it cleans up very well at the end.As for Ralph Nickleby, the evil uncle, can I just say he makes Ebenezer Scrooge look like an absolute saint! At least Scrooge didn't make a point to ruin people's lives, especially not his own family (as I recall, Scrooge had kind feelings for his nephew, but swept it under the rug for most of that story.) Of course, Ralph's ending looked to be a moral to the reader - a very Victorian choice of eventuality,The other characters are all well painted if perhaps caricatures - the pathetic and saintly Smike, the burly and heavily accented Browdie, a weak gentleman named Verisopht...so much fun to keep track of. Favorite first name: Wackford.All in all, enjoyed this, and will continue with Dickens a little longer.
    • 4/5
      Nicholas Nickleby is the tale of a young man whose father has died leaving his family penniless. Nicholas must find a job to support his mother and sister, Kate. The family turns for help to their uncle, Ralph Nickleby, a ruthless businessman, who has taken a dislike to his relatives. Nicholas, aided by many diverse characters, must protect his family from his uncle’s machinations.Nicholas Nickleby was the third book written by Charles Dickens, and it was published in serial form monthly in 1838 and 1839 before being published as a book in 1839.At first, I found the book very readable. As with many books written in the 1800s, the prose tends to be very wordy, and the style of the language is more stilted and formal than in books written more recently. However, I feel that Dickens’ style is perhaps a little more casual than some authors of that time which made reading the book more enjoyable. I felt there were a lot of descriptive passages in the book that could have been edited, making the book more streamlined. After a while, I felt that I got bogged down in the detail which made it somewhat less enjoyable to read. Also, Dickens introduces many characters throughout the book who really do not have a bearing on the overall tale. The characters seem to be part of amusing anecdotes used as filler to keep the serial going as long as possible. I felt that there was a lot of buildup to a climax, and then the story just petered out with minimal wrap-up compared to the amount of buildup. For instance, we learn much about two aristocratic gentlemen and also a family of performers, none of whom figure largely at the end of the story, but there is very little to be learned about the future spouses of both Nicholas and Kate, even though they would have more bearing on the longer story. Please skip the next paragraph as there are spoilers contained. I felt that there were some inconsistencies in how certain characters reacted. Nicholas seemed to be a very kind and honorable young man; however, at the beginning of the story, he seems to have a terrible temper which gets him into trouble. Not long afterward, he seems to have matured, and there is little reason for this given by the author. He may have realized the error of his ways, but Dickens did not see fit to mention this. Also, Ralph Nickleby is portrayed as a mean and heartless man. He finds that he has a son who was ill-treated before he was befriended by the Nickleby family and has now died. Because of this Ralph commits suicide, which seems very out of character. I did enjoy the classic good-triumphs over evil storyline. I also enjoyed meeting the many and varied characters introduced by Dickens, although there were a lot to keep track of. Dickens does a fabulous job of fleshing out some of the characters, but he does leave other characters feeling flat.
    • 2/5
      Heavyweight classic. very funny, in that old-fashioned sort of way, but fuck, it's long. Well worth it though. Not something to be enjoyed on a hot summer day. I'd rather read it in winter with a cup of hot chocolate. The characters are hilarious. I wish people still wrote like that.
    • 4/5
      This one kept me from my A-level studies. Bad book! Bad little book! A grotesque and sprawling masterpiece.