The most gorgeously theatrical of all Dickens’s novels, Nicholas Nickleby follows the delightful adventures of a hearty young hero in nineteenth-century England. Nicholas, a gentleman's son fallen upon hard times, must set out to make his way in the world. His journey is accompanied by some of the most swaggering scoundrels and unforgettable eccentrics in Dickens’s pantheon.
From the dungeon-like Yorkshire boys’ boarding school run by the cruel Wackford Squeers to the high-spirited stage of Vincent Crummles’s extraordinary acting troupe, Nicholas Nickleby is a triumph of the imagination, bursting with color, humor, and poignant social commentary.
For those of us who love Dickens, this is exactly what we love best: the hearty hero, the evil scoundrel, the benevolent benefactors, humor, social commentary, and, best of all, the vast array of eccentrics. Our hero, Nicholas, fights a cruel uncle, a demeaning and humiliating "teaching" job at a boy's boarding school in Yorkshire and wins (by his own hard work and kind heart) a happy life for himself and nearly everybody he takes a fancy to. You read Dickens for the story, but you also read him for the genius he shows in creating characters. In a page he can make a person more real and more memorable than most authors can manage in an entire book. Robert Whitfield, given this Herculean task, never falters. He juggles armies of accents, ages, and levels of intelligence with never a slip. He covers he gamut from effete snob to exhausted street urchin, and not only manages to keep them all straight, but infuses into every one a distinct personality. This is a feast! D.G. (c) AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine
AudioFile...
“For those of us who love Dickens, this is exactly what we love best: the hearty hero, the evil scoundrel, the benevolent benefactors, humor, social commentary, and, best of all, the vast array of eccentrics…. [Robert Whitfield] covers the gamut from effete snob to exhausted street urchin, and not only manages to keep them all straight, but infuses into every one a distinct personality. This is a feast!”
About the Author
Charles Dickens (1812–1870) was born in Landport, Portsea, England, the second of eight children in a family continually plagued by debt. A legacy brought release from the nightmare of debtors’ prison and child labor and afforded him two years of formal schooling. He worked as an attorney’s clerk and newspaper reporter until his early writings brought him the amazing success that was to be his for the remainder of his life.
Digital Rights Information
OverDrive WMA Audiobook
Burn to CD:
Permitted
Transfer to device:
Permitted
Transfer to Apple® device:
Permitted
Public performance:
Not permitted
File-sharing:
Not permitted
Peer-to-peer usage:
Not permitted
All copies of this title, including those transferred to portable devices and other media, must be deleted/destroyed at the end of the lending period.
