Charles Dickens (1812-1870) started his career as a writer with the phenomenally successful Pickwick Papers (1836-7). NICHOLAS NICKLEBY appeared in 1838 and was swiftly followed by 'The Old Curiosity Shop' (1840-41). Dickens is considered as one of the greatest novelists in the English language.
Mark Ford is currently lecturer at University College, London and writes regularly for the London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement and the Guardian.

'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.

Edited with an Introduction by Mark Ford