Charles Dickens had an understanding of mid-Victorian society second to none, and genius and energy massive enough to make the absurdities and terrors of that society come alive on the page. Nicholas Nickleby, with its episodes of chicanery in finance and education, and the dramatic intensity with which it tells the story of its openhearted young protagonist and its frightening villain, the magnificently rendered Ralph Nickleby, represents Dickens at his clear-eyed, indignant, and mesmerizing best.
When Nicholas Nickleby is left penniless by the death of his father, he appeals to his Uncle Ralph to help him and his mother and sister. But Ralph conceives a violent hatred of the young man, and his schemes of persecution haunt Nicholas through a series of picaresque adventures, including a job as a tutor at a horrific school for unwanted boys run by the cruel Wackford Squeers and a stint as a member of the eccentric Crummles family theater troupe. Without shying away from the grimmer aspects of the world Nicholas encounters on his path to eventual happiness, the story remains one of Dickens’s most high-spirited and exuberant.
This edition reprints the original Everyman preface by G. K. Chesterton and includes thirty-nine illustrations by Phiz.
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)
About the Author
Arguably one of the greatest writers of the Victorian era, Charles Dickens is the author of such literary masterpieces as A Tale of Two Cities (1859), A Christmas Carol (1843), David Copperfield (1850), and The Adventures of Oliver Twist (1839), among many others. Dickens' s indelible characters and timeless stories continue to resonate with readers around the world more than 130 years after his death. Dickens was born in 1812 and died in 1870.
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) lived his entire life in Vienna until Hitler's invasion of Austria forced him to seek asylum in London in 1938. The father of psychoanalysis, he exerted a profound influence over the whole intellectual climate of the twentieth century.
Adam Phillips was formerly Principal Child Psychotherapist at Charing Cross Hospital in London. He is the author of several books on psychoanalysis, including "On Kissing, Tickling, and Being Bored"; "Darwin's Worms"; "Promises, Promises"; and "Houdini's Box,"
Joyce Crick was for many years a senior lecturer in German at University College London. In 2000, she was awarded the Schlegel Tieck Prize for her translation of Freud's "The Interpretation of Dreams" for Oxford University Press.
John Carey is an emeritus professor of English at Oxford, a fellow of the British Academy, and chief book reviewer for the London "Sunday Times,"