Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

Nicholas was one of those whose joy is incomplete unless it is shared by the friends of adverse and less fortunate days.

Charles Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby)

Born Charles John Huffam Dickens in Portsmouth, England on February 7,1812, Charles Dickens was the 2nd of 8 children born to John and Elizabeth Barrow Dickens. 

His childhood was not without difficulty. John Dickens lived far beyond his scant means and was incapable of supporting his large family, His father’s poor head for finances led to his imprisonment for debt in the Marshalsea Prison and ultimately forced 12 year old Charles to begin work at at Warren’s Blacking Factory. These early formative years became a taboo topic for discussion with Charles Dickens but found wonderfully creative expression in each of his literary works.

Because of personal experiences in these early years, Dickens was also a dedicated campaigner for children’s rights, education, and social reforms — including his stance as an outspoken proponent for copyright law and the protection of intellectual property. 

Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.

Charles Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby)

Charles Dickens was an incredible creative force during his lifetime.  He wrote 15 novels, 5 novellas and hundreds of short stories and non-fictional articles. He gave lectures, was a prolific letter writer and edited a weekly journal for almost 20 years. But above all Charles Dickens was most celebrated and beloved for his pioneering of the narrative serial novel. Not only did he capture the imagination of millions during his writing career, but he also had an intense gift for a deep portrayal of a time period and a way of life in the world in which he lived.

Mystery and disappointment are not absolutely indispensable to the growth of love, but they are, very often, its powerful auxiliaries.

Charles Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby)

I love to read Charles Dickens.  He’s not always an easy read - his books are usually very lengthy works and there is a different rhythm to reading them…  You don’t finish a Dickens novel in a night or even two nights and you need a fully engaged mind.  They are made to settle into - to invest in with your time and attention — but they are so worth it with their rich, colorful characters and memorable storylines.

Our current read - Nicholas Nickleby — or The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Containing a Faithful Account of the Fortunes, Misfortunes, Uprisings, Downfallings, and Complete Career of the Nickleby Family — is Dickens’ 3rd full-length novel and was originally published in serial form from March 1838 to October 1839 with a book form releasing in 1839.

In short, the poor Nicklebys were social and happy; while the rich Nickleby was alone and miserable.

Charles Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby)

One of the important plot focuses in Nicholas Nickleby involves Nicholas’ teaching position at a Yorkshire boarding school, Dotheboys Hall. Charles Dickens was aware that he could direct public attention and reform by exposing current issues and possibly affect change in people’s attitudes and governmental thinking.  There was a boarding school industry in Yorkshire that involved inhumane treatment of children and Dickens used Nicholas’ teaching experiences to direct a spotlight onto this issue of the time. Unwanted children were being sent to boarding schools where they were kept without vacations or visits home and often lacked basic medical care. As a result of the novel, Nicholas Nickleby, Charles Dickens was a key force in bringing down the Yorkshire School Industry.

But the novel also includes a wealth of memorable characters and twists and turns in storyline.  It is perfect to be paired with hot apple cider and a fireside for a chilly Autumn read.

We will all be able to share our thoughts and ideas on this wonderful novel as we meet for an Autumn Book Breakfast Buffet on Saturday, October 11th, 2025 to discuss Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens. There is still plenty of time to read this one but you may want to get started soon - it is worth the effort!

The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.

Charles Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby)

Wives And Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell

A reread on an Elizabeth Gaskell classic for July 2025...

“To begin with the old rigmarole of childhood. In a country there was a shire, and in that shire there was a town, and in that town there was a house, and in that house there was a room, and in that room there was a bed, and in that bed there lay a little girl;” 
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives And Daughters

Elizabeth Gaskell’s fifth and final novel, Wives And Daughters begins in the small English town of Hollingford in the early 1820/30s and focuses primarily on the bright and loving Molly Gibson. It was first released in serial form in the Cornhill Magazine from August 1964 to January 1866 and released as a book in 1866 by Smith, Elder And Company.

The Cornhill Magazine was a monthly literary journal which peaked in circulation under editor William Makepeace Thackery in the 1860s. It specialized in serializations of new and current novels and articles of interest on many differing subjects to interest the Victorian reader of the time and was a rival publication of Dickens’ All The Year Round. Works included in The Cornhill Magazine included such important novels as Washington Square by Henry James, Far From The Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy and Wives And Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell.

“I won't say she was silly, but I think one of us was silly, and it was not me.” 
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives And Daughters

The town of Hollingford was richly representative of a common country community and was based upon the real life town of Knutsford in Cheshire where Elizabeth Gaskell spent her childhood. Knutsford was a place that had provided a wealth of stories and characters for Elizabeth Gaskell, including her much beloved Cransford stories - Mr. Harrison’s Confessions, Cranford, Round The Sofa and My Lady Ludlow.  

Gaskell’s Hollingford has a large caste of characters - its respected resident aristocracy in Earl & Countess Cumnor, its respected country doctor, its conservative spinsters and its small shops where news is exchanged and not-so-current fashion items are purchased. The rural life lives closely and comfortably with town life and everyone moves on with the secure sense that others have lived just so for many years before. In Hollingford we have a wonderfully deep and accurate sense of small town life during Victorian times - the old ways versus encroaching change and the class system and its changing sensibilities.

“How easy it is to judge rightly after one sees what evil comes from judging wrongly.” 
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives And Daughters

There is also much to enjoy in Molly’s story - banter between herself and her country doctor father, her affectionate relationship as a motherless young woman with Mrs. Hamley, the squire’s wife and her eager anticipation of a relationship with a new step-sister. There are also the many moments in life for her that challenge her temper and her best feelings of kindness. This book may be set almost 200 years in the past - but people ring true and current. The language may be more formal. Social mores may be more strict. But there are the same fears and hopes that are familiar to us all. And the pitfalls that beset them are not all that different.

“But fate is a cunning hussy, and builds up her plans as imperceptibly as a bird builds her nest; and with the same kind of unconsidered trifles.” 
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives And Daughters

Elizabeth Gaskell does what she does best in Wives And Daughters. We have a fertile storyline that touches on the joy of the common person and presents both the kindnesses and oblivious selfishness of the upper class aristocracy and the inter-house competitiveness that they held for each other.

“All sorts of thoughts cross one's mind—it depends upon whether one gives them harbour and encouragement” 
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives And Daughters

While writing Wives And Daughters, Gaskell passed away suddenly in 1865 after suffering a heart attack land so she left her last novel as an incomplete work. Gaskell’s editor, Frederick Greenwood - knowing what Gaskell was planning to write - completed the novel. 

There is much to discuss in the lengthy but enjoyable Wives And Daughters. Start reading now! We will meet to discuss this last work of Elizabeth Gaskell on Saturday, July 12th, 2025 over an early Summer Book Lunch. 

“Pooh! away with love! Nay, my dear, we loved each other so dearly we should never have been happy with any one else; but that's a different thing. People aren't like what they were when we were young. All the love nowadays is just silly fancy, and sentimental romance, as far as I can see.” 
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives And Daughters

Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

She was a fine and handsome girl—not handsomer than some others, possibly—but her mobile peony mouth and large innocent eyes added eloquence to colour and shape. She wore a red ribbon in her hair, and was the only one of the white company who could boast of such a pronounced adornment.
Narrator - Tess of the d’Urbervilles

Author Thomas Hardy was born June 2, 1840 in a small hamlet called Higher Bockhampton, which is located in the southwestern English county of Dorset. His childhood was filled with a wealth of the deep influences of culture and locale. 

From their two-story brick and thatch cottage, Thomas Hardy naturally absorbed a love for literature from his mother, who although she had only served as a maidservant and cook, loved to read Latin poets and translated French romances.  Hardy had a deep love of poetry and even as a renowned author of novels, primarily thought of himself as a poet.

Thomas Hardy’s childhood very much revolved around literature, music, the local church and life in a rustic rural setting – all of which translated into the body of work that the author became renowned for and for which he was much loved by his devoted readers. His father, a self-employed master mason and building contractor, had descended from an old Dorset family tracing back to the Isle of Jersey in the1400s and was an avid violin player who passed along his love of music to young Hardy.

The irresistible, universal, automatic tendency to find sweet pleasure somewhere, which pervades all life, from the meanest to the highest, had at length mastered Tess.
Narrator - Tess of the d’Urbervilles

Years ago when I was finally able to put aside the college textbooks and night times taken up with study and homework, I set out on a personal journey to read through the classics… All the ones I felt that I had missed while locked into a “school system plan” that unfortunately was a fairly Austen-free zone. Now that my reading choices were my own I delved into the Brontë sisters, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, of course – Jane Austen and… Thomas Hardy.

I didn’t lose my heart to Hardy the way I did to John Keats but the writing style of Thomas Hardy totally captured my mind. His word-crafting is sublime and the wise reader will keep a dictionary handy if your love of words is equal to your love of story.

I long to visit England…  to one day have the chance to travel through Wessex…  to wander the sweet smelling farm where Bathsheba Everdene walked with Gabriel Oak among the pastures and flocks, where Tess Durbeyfield lived her early simple cottage life and the town of Casterbridge, where a mayor’s past catches up with him….

The problem is… there is actually no such place.

A fictitious area that featured as a setting in all of Hardy’s major novels, Wessex was named after the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom that historically did exist in southwest England prior to the Norman Conquest and it was the area that Hardy himself called home. Using this imagined world gave Hardy a feeling of freedom that enabled him to  translate his social concerns into his fictional works whether it related to class inequality issues, the ruination of many rural communities by new industry and technologies or the troubling gender issues that affected all levels of Hardy’s world.

As Tess grew older, and began to see how matters stood, she felt quite a Malthusian towards her mother for thoughtlessly giving her so many little sisters and brothers, when it was such a trouble to nurse and provide for them. Her mother’s intelligence was that of a happy child: Joan Durbeyfield was simply an additional one, and that not the eldest, to her own long family of waiters on Providence.
Narrator - Tess of the d’Urbervilles

Thomas Hardy wrote six novels that were an achievement of great British literature - Far From The Madding Crowd (1874), The Return Of The Native (1878), The Mayor Of Casterbridge (1886), The Woodlanders (1887), Tess Of The d’Urbervilles (1891) and Jude The Obscure (1895).

These Wessex novels are outstanding works that continue to give us a wealth of unforgettable characters -  one of which is most definitely Tess Durbeyfield.  

“Don’t you really know, Durbeyfield, that you are the lineal representative of the ancient and knightly family of the d’Urbervilles, who derive their descent from Sir Pagan d’Urberville, that renowned knight who came from Normandy with William the Conqueror, as appears by Battle Abbey Roll?”
Parson Tringham - Tess of the d’Urbervilles

The next read for The Jane Austen Tea Society in our current reading plan is Tess of the d’Urbervilles - the twelfth published novel by Hardy. It was originally released in the illustrated British newspaper The Graphic July through December of 1891 but in a censored version. A three volume edition then released later that year with the subtitle A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented. It was a controversial novel for late Victorian Britain with a lower rural class focus and interwoven treatments of religion and sexuality. But its vivid depiction of a woman’s struggle within the limits of society and her little sphere are deep and emotionally memorable.

Tess Durbeyfield at this time of her life was a mere vessel of emotion untinctured by experience.
Narrator - Tess of the d’Urbervilles

There is much to discuss in our current read, Tess of the d’Urbervilles  — it’s a good one!  We will meet to discuss this much-loved work on January 25, 2025  over an early Spring Book Lunch.

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Elinor was to be the comforter of others in her own distresses, no less than in theirs.

Sense and Sensibility

Sense and Sensibility was first published on October 30th, 1811 by British publisher Thomas Egerton, Military Library of Whitehall, London.  The year 1811was an important one in history  — the first of the time period officially recognized as the Regency Era. 

George, Prince of Wales became prince regent in February of 1811 due to the perceived insanity of his father King George III. Even though the Regency Era has been commonly understood to have extended between the years 1795 and 1837, the regency period officially began with the Prince of Wales regency start in 1811 and it lasted until 1820 at the death of King George III.

The Regency Era is notably recognized for culture and refinement, for music and theatre, for art and a wonderful wealth of literature. But it was also a time rampant with poverty and the growth of slums in populated areas. Unemployment was at a crisis level during the Regency Era and the slums became notorious for violence, gambling, prostitution and other vices.  It was an era with wars, industrial strikes and riots.

Yet despite all of the world events raging around her,  Jane Austen wrote of the quiet daily life of young women trying to find their own place of happiness and security in their small worlds and within the strict parameters imposed on them by society. 

Jane Austen left a skillfully-wrought portrait for us of the retired day to day life for a landed gentry family presented through deeply memorable storylines.  

We don’t hear much about the wars that must have impacted Austen’s life, other than the excitement of Elizabeth Bennet's sisters at nearby soldier camps - but the events surrounding  Jane Austen and her family certainly trickled down to influence plots, characters and the background of her novels.

As you settle in to rereading - or maybe reading for the first time - Sense and Sensibility, open your mind to the big picture surrounding Elinor and Marianne’s story.  What differences did their personalties represent?  How had the Romantic Era of literature (1800 - 1840) affected the creation of their personalities?  

It’s interesting to note that when Sense and Sensibility was published:

Jane Austen was 36

William Wordsworth was 41

Lord Byron was 23

John Keats was 16

There is much in this Jane Austen work that plays on Romantic ideas of the day in skillful character development and the well-crafted conversations that take place.  

Who is more representative of the Romantic Movement — Elinor or Marianne… and which is you?

There is much to discuss in Jane Austen’s first-published novel, Sense and Sensibility — it’s a good one!  We will meet to discuss this much-loved work on January 25, 2025  over an early Winter Book Breakfast.

On every formal visit a child ought to be of the party, by way of provision for discourse.

Sense and Sensibility

North And South by Elizabeth Gaskell

If I saved one blow, one cruel, angry action that might otherwise have been committed, I did a woman's work.

Margaret Hale

Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson was born in September of 1810 in Chelsea, London, the daughter of a Scottish Unitarian minister and the youngest of eight children.

At 11 years old Elizabeth was sent for a typical “young ladies” education in the arts, classics and decorum and encouraged by her aunts and by her father to read, study and to develop in her writing. At 22 years old, she married a Unitarian minister, William Gaskell, in Knutsford and they went to settle in Manchester where he served as the minister Cross Street Unitarian Chapel.  

The tragic loss of children, places lived; neighbors and friends who were loved and experienced… all became fuel for Elizabeth’s imagination as the years passed.  She began with a diary, wrote poems with her husband under the title -  Sketches Among The Poor - which were published in a magazine and there followed other small written works which developed her style.

It was after the Gaskells traveled to the continent that influences produced new ideas and her first work of fiction was published, Libbie Marsh’s Three Eras under the name “Cotton Mather Mills”.  

Elizabeth Gaskell wrote her major literary works in the second half of the century from a villa at 84 Plymouth Grove in Manchester, England.  Her social circle grew to include such writers as Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, John Ruskin and the American writer Harriet Beecher Stowe. 

North and South, Wives and Daughters and Cranford are the most well-known and beloved of the works by Elizabeth Gaskell. Her novels were a window into the life of Victorian society and offered a view into varied social classes. 

A good example is the “social novel”, North and South, which follows protagonist Margaret Hale and the effect of the Industrial Revolution on mill workers and mill owners in the fictional town of Milton in the North of England.

In Milton ... I shall find a busy life, if not a happy one.

Mr. Hale

Margaret’s world is drastically altered from rural southern England to the harsh environments of industrial Milton.  Set near the end of the Industrial Revolution it presents a contrast of the values of rural southern England and the industrial north. 

Historically England’s social structure had been dominated by the landed aristocracy but the Industrial Revolution brought new prominence to wealthy industrialists. There was also the rising opportunities for improved living conditions by new employments possibilities for the working class — but it also came with long working hours, poor working conditions and insufficient wages.

Fancy living in the middle of factories, and factory people! 

Mrs. Hale

Strong, proud and spirited, Margaret Hale is a heroine worth getting to know. She is “not beautiful at all” but is characterized as having a dignity that was striking. The book would have been entitled, Margaret Hale except for the insistence by Charles Dickens that North and South was the better title. Her relationship with the serious and ambitious John Thornton is a compelling one with each challenging and affecting the other for good.

Be always the same John Thornton ... endeavouring to do right, and making great blunders; and then trying to be brave in setting to afresh.

John Thornton

North and South was originally published in the magazine, Household Words in serial form between the years 1854 to 1855 and was subsequently released in book form in 1855. Gaskell does a skillful job in this work of weaving together historical influences, emotional subplots and strong character growth.

There is much to discuss in the lengthy but enjoyable North and South.  Start reading now!  We will meet to discuss this much-loved work of Elizabeth Gaskell on October 19, 2024 over an early Autumn Book Breakfast. 

Don't mock my own deep feeling of unworthiness. 

John Thornton