The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby was published in twenty monthly parts by Chapman and Hall from April 1838 to October 1839, and in a single volume in October 1839. It was Dickens’s third novel, written at the peak of his early fame, and its central target — the notorious Yorkshire boarding schools where unwanted children were warehoused, starved, and beaten — was eliminated within a generation partly as a result of Dickens’s attack. Wackford Squeers, the one-eyed headmaster of Dotheboys Hall, and his wife (“When the boy knows this out of the book, he goes and does it”) became symbols of educational cruelty that Parliament could not ignore.
The Novel
Nicholas Nickleby’s father dies, leaving his family dependent on their uncle Ralph, a heartless moneylender who arranges for Nicholas to become an assistant at Dotheboys Hall. Nicholas rescues the half-witted Smike from Squeers’s brutality and flees. The picaresque narrative takes him through the world of Vincent Crummles’s theatrical troupe (one of Dickens’s greatest comic set-pieces), into employment with the benevolent Cheeryble brothers, and finally to confrontation with Ralph, who is revealed to have been Smike’s father — a discovery that leads to Ralph’s suicide.
The Yorkshire Schools
Dickens visited Yorkshire in 1838, disguised as a man looking to place a child, and what he found at the schools — children beaten, half-starved, blinded by infections, and forgotten by their families — shocked even him. William Shaw, the schoolmaster who served as the primary model for Squeers, had already been convicted of neglect. The novel’s publication accelerated the schools’ demise; most had closed by the 1860s. It was one of the first instances of fiction directly producing social reform.
The Crummles Troupe
Vincent Crummles and his troupe of travelling actors — including the “infant phenomenon” Ninetta Crummles, who has been ten years old for at least five years — represent Dickens’s love of the theatre and his affection for the disreputable, improvisational energy of popular entertainment. The Crummles chapters are among the funniest things Dickens ever wrote and have been cited as an influence on everything from P.G. Wodehouse to the Monty Python troupe.
Collecting Nicholas Nickleby
First edition in parts (Chapman and Hall, London, 1838–1839): Twenty monthly parts in green wrappers. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne (“Phiz”) with 40 plates plus portrait.
Approximate market values:
- Complete in original parts, fine: $8,000–$25,000
- Very good: $3,000–$8,000
- First edition in book form (1839): $2,000–$6,000
Value trajectory (2016–2026): Strong appreciation for parts issues.
Projected values (2026–2036): Fine sets should reach $20,000–$40,000.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Squeers Dickens’s greatest villain? He is one of the most viscerally repulsive. Fagin is more psychologically complex; Uriah Heep more insidious; but Squeers — with his one eye, his cruelty, and his wife’s complicity — has an immediacy that makes him unforgettable. The fact that he was drawn from life makes it worse.
What about the RSC adaptation? The 1980 Royal Shakespeare Company production, adapted by David Edgar and running over eight hours, is considered one of the greatest theatrical adaptations of Dickens. It was filmed for television and remains a landmark of ensemble performance.