Nicholas feels his blood boil but holds on for a while until Squeers treatment of the students gets beyond bearing and he gives Squeers a taste of his own medicine (whip) before leaving. Nicholas is an assistant master at a school, Dotheboys Hall, run by the odious and sadistic Wackford Squeers in Yorkshire where the boys are poorly fed, poorly looked after and taught next to nothing. But as can be expected, neither position is particularly pleasant. Ralph takes a dislike to the younger Nicholas from the start but secures him a position, as he does for Kate whom he takes to, and agrees to look after Kate and her mother so long as Nicholas holds on to his job. At his wife’s behest Nicholas Sr speculates with what little money he has, loses everything and as is usual in such stories dies shortly after leaving his family at the mercy of his cold brother Ralph. On the other hand, Nicholas (Sr) marries and has two children Nicholas, our hero who is nineteen, and Kate, fourteen.
Ralph heads of to the city where his sole focus is making money (unscrupulously of course). Godfrey came into a fortune when one of his relations died of which he left his house to his elder son Nicholas (Sr) and money to the younger Ralph. Our hero is of course Nicholas Nickleby, the grandson of one Godfrey Nickleby of Devonshire. This was I think only my second time reading it, but it was the first of Dickens’ novels which really got me hooked the first time I read it and made me pick up almost all the other Dickens novels. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby is the third of Dickens’ completed novels and was first published in serial between 18.
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