Dickens’ sozialkritischer Gesellschaftsroman erzählt die Geschichte des Nicholas Nickleby, der um 1830 herum und nach dem Tod seines Vaters zu dessen wohlhabenden Bruder nach London zieht. Schnell entwickelt sich zwischen den beiden eine ewig währende Fehde, die immer neue Kapriolen nach sich zieht.
Every town should have a 'card' - someone who gets talked about, someone who does mad and wonderful things, someone who makes you laugh. Bursley in the Five Towns has a 'card': Edward Henry Machin (Denry for short). Denry begins life in a poor little house where the rent is twenty-three pence a week. But before he's thirty, he's made a lot of money, and had more adventures than you and I have had hot dinners. The town of Bursley never stops talking about him. Whatever will young Denry do next?