Nicholas Nickleby · Chapter
Preface to the First Cheap Edition explained
In this preface, Dickens explains the origins of 'Nicholas Nickleby,' detailing his investigation into the brutal Yorkshire schools that inspired the novel.
What happens
In this preface, Dickens explains the origins of 'Nicholas Nickleby,' detailing his investigation into the brutal Yorkshire schools that inspired the novel. He describes his journey to Yorkshire under a false pretext to gather information, recounts a warning from a local man about the schools, and defends the realism of his characters, noting that the Cheeryble brothers were based on real people. He also addresses the public's response and clarifies that Squeers represents a class of abusers rather than a single individual.
Themes in this chapter
Education and Exploitation
Dickens condemns the monstrous neglect of education in England, where unqualified schoolmasters exploited children, causing lasting harm to their minds and bodies.
Social Injustice and Corruption
The preface highlights the systemic corruption of Yorkshire schools, where traders in avarice and indifference preyed on helpless children and parents.
Charity and Compassion
Dickens praises the real-life Brothers Cheeryble for their liberal charity and unbenevolence, contrasting their goodness with the cruelty of the schoolmasters.
Characters to notice
- Nicholas Nickleby
Dickens remarks that Nicholas is not always intended to be blameless, as he is a young man of impetuous temper and little experience, deliberately kept within nature.
- Wackford Squeers
Squeers is described as the representative of a class of ignorant, brutal schoolmasters, and Dickens notes that several real Yorkshire schoolmasters claimed to be his original.
- John Browdie
Dickens suggests that the jovial, ruddy-faced man he met in Yorkshire, who warned him against the schools, may have been a faint reflection of John Browdie.
- Charles Cheeryble
Dickens reveals that the Brothers Cheeryble were drawn from real life, noting their liberal charity and unbounded benevolence, and that they were still living at the time of writing.
- Ned Cheeryble
Along with his brother Charles, Ned Cheeryble is confirmed as a real person whose noble nature and generosity were not fictional creations.
Key passages
“Although any man who had proved his unfitness for any other occupation in life, was free, without examination or qualification, to open a school anywhere; although preparation for the functions he undertook, was required in the surgeon who assisted to bring a boy into the world, or might one day assist, perhaps, to send him out of it; in the chemist, the attorney, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker; the whole round of crafts and trades, the schoolmaster excepted; and although schoolmasters, as a race, were the blockheads and impostors who might naturally be expected to spring from such a state of things, and to flourish in it; these Yorkshire schoolmasters were the lowest and most rotten round in the whole ladder.”
Dickens criticizes the lack of standards for schoolmasters, noting that even surgeons and bakers required qualifications, while anyone, no matter how unfit, could open a school. The Yorkshire schoolmasters were the worst of this corrupt system.
This passage underscores the theme of education and exploitation, showing how systemic neglect allowed brutal men to run schools.
“I am afraid he is dead now. I recollect he was a jovial, ruddy, broad-faced man; that we got acquainted directly; and that we talked on all kinds of subjects, except the school, which he showed a great anxiety to avoid.”
Dickens recalls a friendly, red-faced man he met in Yorkshire who avoided discussing the local school, hinting at its terrible reputation.
This anecdote illustrates the secrecy and shame surrounding the Yorkshire schools, which Dickens later used to inspire the character of John Browdie.
“Weel, Misther, we've been vara pleasant toogather, and ar'll spak' my moind tiv'ee. Dinnot let the weedur send her lattle boy to yan o' our school-measthers, while there's a harse to hoold in a' Lunnun, or a gootther to lie asleep in.”
The man warned Dickens in a thick Yorkshire dialect not to let the widow send her little boy to any of the local schoolmasters, as long as there was a horse to hold or a gutter to sleep in in London.
This heartfelt warning directly influenced the portrayal of the brutal conditions at Dotheboys Hall.
“The author's object in calling public attention to the system would be very imperfectly fulfilled, if he did not state now, in his own person, emphatically and earnestly, that Mr. Squeers and his school are faint and feeble pictures of an existing reality, purposely subdued and kept down lest they should be deemed impossible.”
Dickens insists that the horrors of Squeers' school are actually toned down from real-life atrocities, which were so terrible that readers might not believe them if fully described.
This statement reinforces the theme of social injustice, highlighting the real suffering behind the fictional portrayal.
