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Title: Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens, Alex Jennings ISBN: 1-85549-921-5 Publisher: Cover to Cover Pub. Date: February, 1998 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 24 List Price(USD): $134.95

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Average Customer Rating: 4.24 (21 reviews)

Rating: 4
Summary: The Dickensian world
Comment: I would say this is "David Copperfield"'s B-side. It is a typical Dickensian book: the life of the Nickleby family from the death of the father until they are rich and happy. One of the most important parts of the book is the study of the horrible boarding schools of Yorkshire, where Nicholas is sent. We can read the dirty intrigues of Uncle Ralph, the adventures of Nicholas and Smikes as travelling actors (a world Dickens came to know very well), the kindness of the brethren Cheeryble.

Definitely, this is not one of Dickens's best novels, but nevertheless it is fun to read. The characters are good to sanctity or bad to abjection. The managing of the plot is masterful and the dramatic effects wonderful. It includes, as usual with Dickens, an acute criticism of social vices of his time (and ours): greed, corruption, the bad state of education. In spite of everything, this is a novel very much worth reading, since it leaves the reader a good aftertaste: to humanism, to goodness.

Rating: 4
Summary: Entertaining to the last page, despite its length
Comment: I had never read one of Dickens book before Nicholas Nickleby, though I had always wanted to. I particularly enjoyed this book because of Dicken's subtle sense of humor and colorful characters. It was easy to hate the villains such as Squeers or Ralph Nickleby, and laugh at the amusing chracters of Mr. Mantalini and John Brody(whom I found to be the funniest) Authenticity of personality and speech allows you to connect with the various chracters. Although he was probably the least complex, my favorite was Smike, the pitiful victim of the Yorkshire schools of the 1800s.
The one drawback was the size of this book. Dickens spent much time giving detail of many places and people (and did a good job of it), but we must draw the line somewhere. Just when one thinks enough words have been spent on one topic, it diverges into yet another irrevelant matter.
I'd recommend this book to almost anyone, unless you have a great fear of commitment. But the book has plenty of plot and satire to hold you to the end. I certainly was, but I don't think my librarian would believe me.

Rating: 5
Summary: Favorite book...ever.
Comment: I have read quite a lot of the classics; "Les Miserables", "Sense and Sensibility", "The Phantom of the Opera", "The Three Musketeers", and so on. As great as all these books are, "Nicholas Nickleby" is honestly my favorite of them all.

I have also read "Great Expectations" and "A Tale of Two Cities" by Dickens. "...Cities" was excellent; Sidney Carton is one of the best fictional characters ever created. However, I was not so impressed with "...Expectations". I read this after I read "Nicholas Nickleby" and was dissapointed. I was simply not drawn into the "...Expectations" story as much as "Nicholas...". The characters were not as lively, vibrant.

To me it is a shame that "...Expectations" is praised as such a classic, when many people have not even heard of, in my opinion, the superior "Nicholas Nicleby".