![]() ![]() (And the London’s financial crisis of 1825-26. He also set Nicholas Nickleby in the 1820s, around the time that eight pupils under the case of one William Shaw went blind due to neglect. In preparation for the sequence in his novel, Dickens studied legal reports on the schools and even visited one of the most notorious examples. The boarding schools were rife with abuse and students died from both malice and neglect. In the years leading up to the railroad and the penny stamp, Yorkshire was a reasonably remote corner of the country ideal for dumping inconvenient children. In this case, Dickens was eager to expose Yorkshire boarding schools. Nicholas Nickleby is not one of Dickens’ most famous novels coming as it did on the heels of Oliver Twist but it does contain his signature ingredients: colorful characters, melodramatic situations and a passion for social justice. This, of course, required bold plotting and some rather mad plot twists but, really, isn’t that rather like serialized prestige television today? A fair amount of brooding is required. ![]() Rather than purchasing the novel in one go, Dickens sold packets of serialized chapters over the course of months or years, always leaving the reader in some kind of suspense and champing at the bit to see what would happen next. To understand the popularity of Charles Dickens, it is also important to understand how his novels were distributed. Home Media Availability: Released on DVD and via streaming. ![]()
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