Nicholas Nickleby: Chapters 11 - 23

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Almost, yes, but not gambling debts.

Shirley and Paul - Do you remember that in chapter 17, Mr M was delighted when he had flattered Mrs M enough so that she fetched some papers for him from her desk? These are her business accounts - IOUs from her customers - which he then regularly passes on to Ralph Nickleby, who gives him some cash, so he can carry on gambling (or pay some of his debts.) Nobody owes Mr M anything though; it's his wife's business and he's the debtor.

No doubt Ralph Nickleby would hike up the interest, yes; we were told that is the way he does business, in the first chapter.

[Bridget]

Since we are talking about Mr. and Mrs. M - I thought I would chime in with a small little thing I noticed in their conversation.

Kate overhears Mrs. M saying "you ought not to waltz with anybody but your own wife". She is quite right to be upset about Mr. M "waltzing" with someone else. The waltz was considered more intimate than most dances, because the partners had to "hold" each other while they moved about the dance floor. In fact there was a time not to long before when this story is set that "waltzing" was considered scandalous. I'm certain Dickens picked the word "waltz" on purpose to emphasize Mr. M's lechery and wandering attentions.

[Sue]

Paul wrote: "And to point out one more obvious Dickensian naming pun that nobody has commented on yet:

Miss Knag screams at me Miss-s-s
NAG
!"

Yes Yes Yes! I’m so glad you said that. I’ve been thinking it but silently.

[Claudia]

Miss Knag seems to bear an intrinsic capacity of nuisance for Kate, depending on how they will be getting on. She is, in her way and in her position, a London pendant of what Miss Squeers was to Nicholas.

Miss Knag may be instrumental in Kate's well or ill-being just as Miss Squeers was, after the rejection of her love by Nicholas, the decisive lever of the final blow, who unleashed violence by proxy.

Both women, albeit in different ages, are equally viewing themselves either prettier or younger than they really are. There were great Dickens quotes about mirrors mirroring what we wish to see.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Bridget wrote: "This brilliant simile also strikes me as very Dickensian, equating young female milliners with the humble silkworm ..."

I did so enjoy the two quotations you reminded us of here, Bridget. We really can benefit from weighing every single word in Charles Dickens, can't we. "The thoughtless and the luxurious" ... and how often, he implies, are these linked together 🤔

I very much like your thoughts on Miss Knag too Sue, about her self-aggrandisement:"It’s no wonder Miss Knag is working on these airs of importance. She has likely endured some of the same terrible behavior from clients".

It is indeed a sobering thought that Miss Knag has take her model of behaviour from such vain and selfish, privileged people 🙄 Great observation! Such a jaundiced atmosphere must take its toll, and so it perpetuates the cycle.

Oh yes, Paul (and Sue) she is so aptly named! 😂

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Bridget wrote: "I'm certain Dickens picked the word "waltz" on purpose to emphasize Mr. M's lechery and wandering attentions...."

What an excellent point - I had not picked that up - thank you Bridget! It's probably a double-entendre which the readers would all know at the time. Or perhaps it isn't even to be taken literally, but a slang term for hanky-panky.

And another brilliant observation Claudia, that Miss Knag is to Kate what Fanny Squeers is to Nicholas. Both are deceiving themselves about their looks, and also determined to put these "new recruits" in their place, i.e. lower than/under them 😠.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Installment 6

Chapter 18: Miss Knag, after doting on Kate Nickleby for three whole Days, makes up her Mind to hate her for evermore. The Causes which led Miss Knag to form this Resolution

The narrator muses on how the most assuming lives have their own dramas, unnoticed by all around them. So it is with Kate, whose life now is a hard one of struggle, dullness, unhealthy confinement, and bodily fatigue. However, because the author wants to tells us a story of drama and romance, he says he will not dwell on the daily grind in Mrs Mantalini’s establishment.

The first night, when Kate had wearily left for home, Miss Knag talks about her in glowing terms to Mrs. Mantalini. She says that Kate is such a well-behaved, unassuming young lady. Even though she was selected to model outfits, she doesn’t put on airs. Miss Knag smarmily say she does not know how Madame Mantalini manages to always be right.

Mrs Mantalini is less impressed, blaming Kate for making her customers ill-humoured. Miss Knag suggests it on inexperience, and is pleased when Mrs. Mantalini suggests the reason might be Kate’s youth, and awkwardness. She can’t understand why Kate’s uncle said she was pretty, for she finds her to be very ordinary. Miss Knag is delighted:

“‘Ordinary!’ cried Miss Knag with a countenance beaming delight; ‘and awkward! Well, all I can say is, Madame Mantalini, that I quite love the poor girl; and that if she was twice as indifferent-looking, and twice as awkward as she is, I should be only so much the more her friend, and that’s the truth of it.’”

Miss Knag had been quite pleased to see Kate’s failure, after her initial misgivings about Kate’s appearance compared with her own.

The next day, Miss Knag “kindly” tells Kate she has no talent for modelling. However, all she needs to do is to stay in the background and not attract attention to herself. Kate is only too glad to do this, for she hates having people stare at her.

“‘I take quite a lively interest in you, my dear soul, upon my word,’ said Miss Knag; ‘a sister’s interest, actually. It’s the most singular circumstance I ever knew.”

The narrator drily comments that even if this were true, it would be more accurate to say the interest was that of a maiden aunt or grandmother, but that Miss Knag always dressed too young for her age.

After the second day’s work, Miss Knag remarks how awkward Kate has been, but gives her new friend a kiss, and walks home with Kate after work. She expresses surprise at Kate living in the city.

“‘Reduced—I should say poor people,’ answered Kate, correcting herself hastily, for she was afraid of appearing proud, ‘must live where they can.’”

Miss Knag talks about her servants, [thereby putting Kate in the same category] saying how such people are glad to sleep anywhere.

Kate really does not want Miss Knag to accompany her, especially since Miss Knag is making it so obvious that she believes she is is conferring a great favour on Kate in doing so. She explains that her mother meets her, to walk home. However, she introduces her, and Miss Knag:

“acknowledged the introduction with condescending politeness. The three then walked away, arm in arm: with Miss Knag in the middle, in a special state of amiability.”

Miss Knag continues to feel self-satisfied, because she is better off than the Nicklebys financially. Mrs. Nickleby talks sadly about losing her husband, and Miss Knag manages to be condescending even about marrying someone. Nevertheless Mrs Nickleby prattles on, not noticing.

She boasts about how clever Kate is, and how she doesn’t doubt that she will soon be very good at her job. Miss Knag humours her: “squeezing Kate’s arm in her own, to point the joke”. Mrs. Nickleby talks about how a friend of her late husband always doted on Kate, reminding by way of saying he was the one who:

“your poor papa went bail for, who afterwards ran away to the United States, and sent us … such an affectionate letter … In which he said that he was very sorry he couldn’t repay the fifty pounds just then, because … he was very busy making his fortune”

but insisted that the Nicklebys bought the two year old Kate a present on his behalf and “put it down to his old account”.

Guilelessly Mrs Nickleby continues with another story about a different “friend” who had said Kate was the most astonishing child he had ever seen. And he didn’t like children, so couldn’t have had any ulterior motive for doing it:

“I know it was he who said so, because I recollect, as well as if it was only yesterday, his borrowing twenty pounds of her poor dear papa the very moment afterwards.”

Not to be outdone, Miss Knag talks about how her mother used to loan thousands of pounds, and she doubts that they will ever be repaid. They both went on talking contentedly:

“the only difference between them being, that whereas Miss Knag addressed herself to Kate, and talked very loud, Mrs. Nickleby kept on in one unbroken monotonous flow, perfectly satisfied to be talking and caring very little whether anybody listened or not.”

They walk on past a small stationers shop and library in a by-street off Tottenham Court Road, where Miss Knag’s brother Mortimer works. Miss Knag decides they will go in, and her brother begins arguing with their charwoman, who:

“employed in the absence of the sick servant, and remunerated with certain eighteenpences to be deducted from her wages due, was putting the supper out.”

He criticises her for keeping her bonnet on, and she gives as good as she gets, grudging the fact that he pays her so little and makes her do extra work.



“A Comic Sparring Match of Stationer and Charwoman” - Fred Barnard - 1875

Mrs. Nickleby and Kate are concerned that Mr. Knag seems to be out of humour. Miss Knag tells them that he is in love with Mrs. Mantalini. His chances of marrying her had seemed good, and he is:

“conscious of his own superiority, as we all are, and … took to scorning everything, and became a genius.”

Miss Knag assures them that the disappointment - with the aid of her experiences - have enabled his genius to come out, whereby he has written three books.

The Mantalini staff are amazed that Miss Knag continues to remain friendly with Kate, for it is out of character. However, on the fourth day, a lord comes in with his fiancée and her sister to look at nuptial bonnets. Mrs Mantalini and Miss Knag are full of admiration over her appearance.



“Kate, Madame Mantalini’s protégée, supplants Miss Knag” - Charles Stanley Reinhart - 1875

The old man mumbles and chuckles, in a state of great delight, whereupon the:

“lively young lady, seeing the old lord in this rapturous condition, chased the old lord behind a cheval-glass, and then and there kissed him, while Madame Mantalini and the other young lady looked, discreetly, another way.”

Miss Knag accidentally witnesses this, and the fiancée is offended by her impertinence. Smiling contemptuously, she asks Mrs. Mantalini to send up the pretty, young girl they had seen the other day. She continues to say that she hates to be waited upon by elderly frights, and she would prefer to have the young girl model for her always. “Everyone”, she says, has been remarking on Kate’s beauty.

“‘She is universally admired,’ replied Madame Mantalini. ‘Miss Knag, send up Miss Nickleby. You needn’t return.’”

Miss Knag trembles, not able to believe this, but when told again, she vanishes. Kate appears, and the company are amused to see that she blushes.

When she returns downstairs, Kate finds several girls attending to Miss Knag, who has fainted dramatically and is now sobbing. Everyone darts angry looks at Kate. Miss Knag starts shouting at her, calling her a bold-faced hussy, and saying that she has been the model for fifteen years, and how:

“‘I have never in all that time, till now, been exposed to the arts, the vile arts, of a creature, who disgraces us with all her proceedings, and makes proper people blush for themselves. But I feel it, I do feel it, although I am disgusted.”

The others say she must be superior to such things and that they despise
them. Miss Knag wails how she had been called elderly, and a fright, and the girls deny that this can be so.

“‘I hate her,’ cried Miss Knag; ‘I detest and hate her. Never let her speak to me again; never let anybody who is a friend of mine speak to her; a slut, a hussy, an impudent artful hussy!’”

Poor Kate is bewildered by all this, but maintains a proud composure. Nevertheless:

“she gave way, in secret, to some such bitter tears as would have gladdened Miss Knag’s inmost soul, if she could have seen them fall.”

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

And a little more …

The Newgate Novel

At the beginning, when Charles Dickens is expounding on literature, he says:

“A thief in fustian is a vulgar character, scarcely to be thought of by persons of refinement; but dress him in green velvet, with a high-crowned hat, and change the scene of his operations, from a thickly-peopled city, to a mountain road, and you shall find in him the very soul of poetry and adventure”.

Here he is referring to the so-called “Newgate Novel”, which was a popular genre in the 1830s. Charles Dickens’s ongoing serial novel Oliver Twist falls into this category, so he is using one serial to defend another … surely a strange piece of meta-fiction!

Other examples are Paul Clifford (1830) by Charles Dickens’s friend Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and William Harrison Ainsworths Jack Sheppard(1834). (William Harrison Ainsworth also wrote Rookwood in 1834, which became famous as featuring Dick Turpin.)

The “Newgate Novels” were attacked by William Makepeace Thackeray, because he felt they glamourised criminals.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

And yet more …

When Miss Knag says: “doing the last new carriage customers at second hand” she is imitating the manner of the most recent high society client of the Mantalini establishment.

“St Anthony’s fire” is Erysipelas - a disease that inflames the skin

“airy” Mrs Blockson is very cockney (dialect of those in the East End of London), and this is her way of saying “area” i.e. the small sunken court at the front of the house.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

There were so many, but my favourite quotation of all is about the lecherous old lord:

“It was a satisfactory thing to hear that the old gentleman was going to lead a new life, for it was pretty evident that his old one would not last him much longer.” 😆

Miss Knag is such a toad! 😡 Charles Dickens did warn us that she could be treacherous and change her tune in a instant, but to gather her little clique of younger girls round her, to behave in the same way, makes it even worse.

Poor Kate is now in a similar position to Nicholas, isn’t she. Any thoughts on what we have read so far? Despite Kate's sorry position, I found this chapter hilarious, with so many choice phrases and misguided perceptions of motive by Mrs Nickleby, as well as the wry comments about Miss Knag from the narrator 😆😂

[Claudia]

"...for fifteen years have I been the credit and ornament of this room and the one upstairs. (...) Have I deserved to be called a fright! (...) Have I deserved to be called an elderly person!"

Miss Knag has said it all! (this room and the one upstairs was so good!)

Thank you Jean for this comprehensive summary and the additional explanations, such as The Newgate Novel!

Honestly, I don't quite trust the Mantalinis either, although their awkward behaviour is not as blatant as the behaviour of Squeers'. We noticed that Mr Mantalini was reproached to be "waltzing" with other ladies, and that much of him, including his name, was fake or widely exaggerated. He looks and sounds at the very least dishonest.

Kate has to rely upon her own judgement so far, as we see how unconsequent Mrs Nickleby seems to appear (telling all of her story to an unknown person as Miss Knag). The only sensible person who could have a reasonable view on things here is Miss La Creevy, as long as Nicholas does not resurface - and there is no reason he does, as long as his sister and mother believe him to be paving his way for a career as a headmaster in this noble institution in Yorkshire.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Claudia wrote: "Miss Knag has said it all! (this room and the one upstairs was so good!) Thank you Jean for this comprehensive summary..."

Thanks Claudia, and thanks too for your additional observations 😊

And talking of "the one upstairs" ... May I share a laughable error from the hopeless online summaries today? It was reproduced as "the shower room". I'll admit this had me scratching my head. I know Charles Dickens had a prototype cold shower installed in his place at Broadstairs, but it really was an extraordinarily new idea. And how on earth would this fit into a milliners' shop? 🤔

Then it hit me. Of course it should have been "the showroom upstairs"! (for displaying the goods on sale) Dear oh dear ... Perhaps I should collect them all up and make a book 😂🤣

[Kathleen]

When you wrote shower room, I was thinking of the cold shower, so to speak, that Miss Knag went through upstairs.

Dickens’ wit is amazing. His writing seems so natural, so easy, but so quickly full of barbs, stings, fun names, and great quotes. They seem so easy coming from him, and not something that he worked and over worked on.

I’m wondering, at this point, if he is still working on two books at once.

[Lori]

Jean, your favorite quote was also mine. I wonder if Dickens left Mr. M out of the scene to give us a break! Haha! Plus this is meant to focus on Miss Knag and her insufferable behavior. Poor Kate. Has anyone else thought that Mrs. Nickleby could do this job so much easier with her personality? Kate must be like her father.

The Newgate Novel was all new to me but it makes perfect sense. Thanks for sharing all of these wonderful tidbits with us, Jean.

[Peter]

The Canadian Thanksgiving was this past weekend so I’m a bit behind in my postings. Our grandchildren came with their colds and left their colds with my wife and I.

Both Nicholas and Kate are having no luck with their employers. It certainly seems that their employers are all, to a degree, exploitive. Both Nicholas and Kate represent honest and willing workers. To be a poor but honest person is not valued. Certainly, as Nicholas experienced, even the government, represented by Mr Gregsbury, is quick to dismiss anyone who requests a fair wage. Gregsbury’s dismissal of Nicholas with the word ‘door’ is a subtle cruelty, perhaps as cruel as Squeers treatment of his students.

In this chapter Kate learns that to be efficient, courteous, and well-liked by the customers are qualities that are not valued by her employer. We are developing wonderful sets of examples of comparison and contrast among groups of characters and occupations. To what extent is Miss Knag really any better a person than Mr Squeers?

In reading chapter 18 I believe we see another way Dickens’s style is shown. To me, I can read this chapter as a stand-alone piece of writing. It could easily stand alone and fit into a sketch and find itself in ‘Sketches by Boz.’ It works. The class differences, the minutiae of individual character personalities and the subtle wit are on full display. That said, a close look at what went on before in the novel is here in this chapter too. Will we be surprised if some of the threads in this chapter will be woven together again in subsequent chapters?

[Kelly]

I do have to admit the first three paragraphs of Chapter 18 had me scratching my head just a bit. I get a grasp, but then the next thing I know Dickens loses me (I've re-read it quite a few times). Jean, your comments on the Newgate Novel and your paragraph about this in the summary were helpful! Am I correct in saying Dickens thinks most people *wouldn't* want to read about Kate's life or find it worth reading about? It is "a hard one; but lest the very dullness, unhealthy confinement, and bodily fatigue, which made up its sum and substance, should deprive it of any interest with the mass of charitable and sympathetic...", he insists he must keep telling her tale. If anyone could explain that first part of Chapter 18 to me a bit more, I would be so appreciative!

I love the comparison Claudia made of Nicholas/Fanny with Kate/Miss Knag. I wrote in a previous comment that I loathed Fanny (it was when I read her letter to Ralph). Miss Knag is coming in a close second.

As far as thoughts on what we have read so far, I so admire writers who can cleverly weave a story and its characters together. The similar situations that Nicholas and Kate (two good-hearted people and siblings to boot) are in I can only hope will be woven together down the line at some point. I envision Nicholas being there for Kate and vice versa. A reader can dream. In the meantime, I very much enjoy the back and forth of the setting, the situation, and the comparisons we can make between what is happening to these two unfortunates. Although when we last left Nicholas, he was a newly hired French tutor, correct? Perhaps he will find better fortunes with the Kenwigs than he did the Squeers. Although I don't think we've seen the last of the Squeers; that is for sure.

[Sue]

One thing that stood out for me was that Mrs Mantalini was the one to make the decision to replace Miss Knag with Kate in the showroom after the customer’s rude comments directed at Miss Knag. But of course Knag can’t focus any anger at her actual boss or customer but must be enraged at the one person who had nothing to do with the decision but to be standing by, ready to assist as was her job. And of course, the Mantalinis would never defend an employee over a customer, or one employee against another, or even notice employees ganging up on another. It’s a sweat shop after all.

[Connie]

Ch 18
We were introduced to the brother of Miss Knag, Mr Mortimer Knag, who was Mrs Mantalini's former suitor. Mortimer sounds as cheerless as his name, and Mrs Mantalini probably preferred someone who flattered her.

Miss Knag describes her brother as a genius:

"The fact is, that he did find so much in the books he read, applicable to his own misfortunes, and did find himself in every respect so much like the heroes--because of course he is conscious of his own superiority, as we all are, and very naturally--that he took to scorning everything, and became a genius; and I am quite sure that he is, at this very present moment, writing another book."

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Kathleen wrote: "Dickens’ wit is amazing. His writing seems so natural, so easy ... I’m wondering, at this point, if he is still working on two books at once"

It does doesn't it? And yes, he was writing two serials each day! As you can see from the previous illustration by Phiz for chapter 17, that was for the August 1838 installment of Nicholas Nickleby, which was also the same month as the 17th installment (chs 38-part 39) for Oliver Twist. There were still 7 more to go.

So in the mornings, while Charles Dickens was writing the nightmarish episodes in Oliver Twist for the September issue - which was never printed because of the contractual problems I described in the group read - he had some relief in the afternoons, writing the current installment of Nicholas Nickleby.

Thanks for mentioning this, Kathleen 😁It's interesting to compare them, and consider what his emotional state must be when writing each back to back.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Lori wrote: "Jean, your favorite quote was also mine ..." 😆

And you have now set me wondering about Mr Nicholas Nickleby, i.e. Nicholas's father. After all, we can't really believe Mrs Nickleby's unreliable reports of him, can we? In the first chapter he came across through the narrator's description as a good, industrious and kind soul, but rather weak - but then the description became fanciful with his musings and attempts at suicide. It's another example of an unfathomable marriage.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Peter wrote: "To be a poor but honest person is not valued ..."

That's a very pertinent comment about this novel, Peter. Charles Dickens lightens the tone and makes us laugh, but really what a catalogue of scroungers, misfits and wannabes we have here! And the two points of light (apart from Nicholas and Kate) I can see are either complete failures in the world's eyes (Newman Noggs) or cheerful but frustrated in her ambitions and scratching a living (Miss La Creevy )- and is that her real name, or is it another sort of "Mantalini"?

As you say, yet again it has a feeling of the early Sketches by Boz - and also The Pickwick Papers, I think. Now we have connected it with Charles Dickens's contractual problems during Oliver Twist, we can see that he may have been drawn to write a ridiculous and light episode here. Yet as you say, ch 18 works beautifully, and is so much more. I too love to wonder which characters he was tempted to develop.

(I hope your colds have been banished now, by the way Peter! Not the best way to enjoy a festive time. 🙄)

[Claudia]

Miss La Creevy : I was reminded of a flat tyre, le pneu crevé. I discovered a web site called La Crevée, where they sell some various artistic items manufactured from flat inner tubes, hence the name.

Crevée means in slang very tired, or, applied to an animal, dead.

Nothing seems to apply to our miss La Creevy, but I know that Dickens was a facetious francophone with a quite good command of that language and may have played in a bilingual way with names (see Mrs Merdle in Little Dorrit).

Some slang phrases used by Gavroche are still in use today!

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Oh that's fascinating! Thanks for your expertise here, Claudia. Yes, Charles Dickens visited France regularly and lived there for a while (it was cheaper than here!) We have detailed accounts of this from his letters to John Forster, and he has often included French episodes and people in the shorter tales we have read.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Kelly wrote: "I do have to admit the first three paragraphs of Chapter 18 had me scratching my head just a bit ... Am I correct in saying Dickens thinks most people *wouldn't* want to read about Kate's life or find it worth reading about?"

Yes, you have understood it just fine, Kelly 😊

When Charles Dickens says a story "must have its romance; and the less of real, hard, struggling work-a-day life there is in that romance, the better"

this is an apologia for the colourful villains in his earlier Oliver Twist, and a defence of all "Newgate novels" which deal with that jail and the people who should be (or end up) in it. He goes on to say of Kate's life, that "the very dulness, unhealthy confinement, and bodily fatigue, which made up its sum [might] deprive it of any interest".

That is why, Charles Dickens tells us, he will concentrate on Kate herself and not the boring daily grind of work in the shop, viz:

"I would rather keep Miss Nickleby herself in view just now, than chill them in the outset, by a minute and lengthened description of the establishment presided over by Madame Mantalini."

I suspect that Charles Dickens might have been toying with the idea of giving us thumbnail sketches of some of the poor milliner's assistants, since he has expressed such sympathy with these girls in the article I quoted earlier. At any rate, he is telling us what his focus is now going to be, in future episodes concerning Kate.

"I envision Nicholas being there for Kate and vice versa. A reader can dream."

I hope so too Kelly! They seem very close, don't they 😊

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Sue wrote: "the Mantalinis would never defend an employee over a customer, or one employee against another, or even notice employees ganging up on another ..."

Great point Sue. Mrs Mantalini is a skilled businesswoman, and the business is the focus of all her decisions, except of course for her manipulative husband and his sweet nothings, which distract her so that she can't focus.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Connie wrote of Miss Knag's opinion of her brother Mortimer:

"he took to scorning everything, and became a genius ..."

This part made me laugh so much too!

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Chapter 19: Descriptive of a Dinner at Mr. Ralph Nickleby’s, and of the Manner in which the Company entertained themselves, before Dinner, at Dinner, and after Dinner.

Miss Knag and the other young women make Kate’s life increasingly miserable, particularly when she is called to model. Her pitiful salary is earned with much hardship.

When she leaves work, she is surprised to find her mother talking to her uncle outside, and even more surprised at his avuncular manner, yet he still has a “cold glistening eye”.

Mrs Nickleby tells Kate with delight that her uncle Ralph has invited Kate to dine with him the next day. While deciding what Kate should wear, Mrs Nickleby goes off at a tangent, lamenting on the jewels she had to give up, and wishing that her husband had taken her advice to make arrangements with the creditors. She was always telling him so, she reminds Kate.

Ralph wants Kate to entertain at a party for some business associates. Kate agrees to help, though she isn’t at all sure that she will be any good at it.

Mrs. Nickleby is pleased at the outcome:

“Your uncle has taken a strong fancy to you, that’s quite clear; and if some extraordinary good fortune doesn’t come to you, after this, I shall be a little surprised.”

She muses on all the other cases where she has known courtships between eccentric uncles and young ladies. Being introduced to other wealthy gentlemen might help Kate to a good marriage, she thinks.

Great care is taken is arranging Kate’s outfit and all the finery is set out in the gloomy old house where they live. The next evening everything is ready well in advance, and Kate duly takes a hackney coach to her uncle’s home. She is amazed at all the well-dressed servants and the finery, but feels very uncomfortable when she realises she is to be the only female at the party. To make things worse, the other gentlemen are coarse and rough, and evidently regard her uncle with contempt. Ralph Nickleby makes a point of introducing her first to Lord Frederick Verisopht, who has:

“a suit of clothes of the most superlative cut, a pair of whiskers of similar quality, a moustache, a head of hair, and a young face.”



“Kate introduced to her uncle's dissolute aristocratic associates” - Hablot K. Browne (Phiz) - September 1838

Another gentleman then insists on being introduced:

“‘Sir Mulberry Hawk,’ said Ralph.
‘Otherwise the most knowing card in the pa-ack, Miss Nickleby,’ said Lord Frederick Verisopht.“

and the introductions continue. In turn Kate is introduced to seven or eight gentlemen. She is repulsed and offended by:

“the flippant contempt with which the guests evidently regarded her uncle, and … the easy insolence of their manner towards herself.”

The narrator comments that even though she is not used to town manners, “a young lady (by nature) … will have quite as strong an innate sense of the decencies and proprieties of life”.

Lord Frederick Verisopht and Sir Mulberry Hawk compete over Kate’s attention, Mulberry Hawk especially flirting with her outrageously to Kate’s evident embarrassment:

“‘This fellow, Hawk, is monopolising your niece,’ said Lord Frederick.
‘He has a tolerable share of everything that you lay claim to, my lord,’ said Ralph with a sneer.“

Pyke and Pluck are toadies of Mulberry Hawk’s, who is known for ruining wealthy young men:

“Indeed, it was not difficult to see, that the majority of the company preyed upon the unfortunate young lord, who, weak and silly as he was, appeared by far the least vicious of the party.”

Kate is trying to be invisible. The men make a bet whether she will look Mulberry in the face and say she was not thinking about why the men weren’t wooing her. She is distraught, and begs:

“‘Pray do not make me the subject of any bets. Uncle, I cannot really—’
‘Why not, my dear?’ replied Ralph, in whose grating voice, however, there was an unusual huskiness, as though he spoke unwillingly, and would rather that the proposition had not been broached. ‘It is done in a moment; there is nothing in it. If the gentlemen insist on it—’“

Kate flees the room in embarrassment and once alone, is overcome and sobs. Mulberry Hawk, having won the bet, drinks to her health and spirit. A servant tells Kate that her uncle would like to see her before she leaves. She remains upstairs and reads, unwilling to face the gentlemen.

Kate becomes absorbed in the book, and does not notice Mulberry Hawk enter the room. He watches her for a few moments and then begins flirting again. Kate asks him to stop, but when he does not, she burst out in spite of herself:

“your behaviour offends and disgusts me. If you have a spark of gentlemanly feeling remaining, you will leave me.”



“Sir Mulberry Hawk insults Kate Nickleby” - Harry Furniss -
1910

Kate tries to leave, but Sir Mulberry Hawk snatches at her dress to stop her:



“Sir Mulberry Hawk’s Unwanted Advances” - Charles Stanley Reinhart - 1875

"Unhand me, sir, this instant," cries Kate. She pulls away, and drunk, he falls over full length:



“The lecherous Sir Mulberry Hawk thrown off-balance” - Fred Barnard - 1875

Ralph Nickleby enters at that point, and Kate indignantly tells him that as her uncle, he should have protected her from insults such as these

“Ralph did shrink, as the indignant girl fixed her kindling eye upon him, [and] led her to a distant seat.”

He then shows Sir Mulberry Hawk the door. A new idea seems to occur to Mulberry Hawk:

“‘You wanted the lord, did you?’ he said, stopping short when he reached the door, as if a new light had broken in upon him, and confronting Ralph again. ‘Damme, I was in the way, was I?’
Ralph smiled again, but made no answer.“

Mulberry Hawk realises that Kate had been invited to lure Lord Frederick Verisoft. Ralph virtually admits this to be true, but says that he believed the lord would have respected Kate:

“ I did not think of subjecting the girl to the licentiousness and brutality of so old a hand as you.”

Sir Mulbery Hawk shrugs and leaves, and Ralph looks at his niece, who is “still weeping in an agony of shame and grief”.

Ralph is hard-headed in matters of business but the narrator tells us that
now:

“he felt awkward and nervous … here was a young girl, who had done no wrong … who had patiently yielded to all his wishes; who had tried hard to please him—above all, who didn’t owe him money.”

He tries to calm her as best he can. Kate asks why he did this to her, and her uncle tells her that he did not consider the possibility that something like this would happen.

Kate tells him she wants to leave, and he urges her to compose herself, adding:

“‘nobody must know of this but you and I’ … he supported her downstairs, after adjusting her shawl and performing such little offices, most probably for the first time in his life.”

Ralph Nickleby continues to be solicitous until Kate is seated in the coach, and as she looks up with her tear-stained face he is startled by the resemblance to his dead brother, and is overwhelmed by strong recollections of earlier times.

“Ralph Nickleby … staggered while he looked, and went back into his house, as a man who had seen a spirit from some world beyond the grave.”

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

What a shocker of a chapter! No wonder all the illustrators chose to portray this one.

It's interesting that the 3 later illustrators chose the same scene - but a different one from the one Charles Dickens had stipulated to Phiz, where Kate is introduced to Lord Frederick Verisoft. (His name should tickle your fancy I suspect, Paul)

And we were all worried about the lecherous Mr Mantalini …

But do we notice a chink in the "strictly business" hard plating of Ralph Nickleby? The last paragraph in particular made me think he has a heart, though so far he has treated his brother's widow abominably.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

I’m not so sure about this comment by Charles Dickens:

“And to do Mrs. Nickleby justice, she never had lost—and to do married ladies as a body justice, they seldom do lose—any occasion of inculcating similar golden precepts, whose only blemish is, the slight degree of vagueness and uncertainty in which they are usually enveloped.”

Either a backhanded compliment or a double condemnation of all “married ladies” there. It seems rather out of character. Let’s hope it is tongue in cheek, as so many of his observations are in this novel.

Plus I found this to quite revealing about Charles Dickens's generous and gallant view of 17 year old girls “a young lady (by nature) … will have quite as strong an innate sense of the decencies and proprieties of life”.

But my favourite quotation from ch 19 comes when Charles Dickens describes how Kate was ready for the dinner party far earlier than was necessary:

Mrs Nickleby’s impatience went a great deal faster than the clocks at that end of the town.

I’m looking forward to your comments today! Lots to react to 😂😡 and ponder here 🤔

[Kathleen]

This was a powerful chapter, and I was happy to see Kate stand up for herself. So both she and Nicholas are fighters! And I liked the chipping away at Ralph’s hard heart at the end. This and the emphasis on business throughout the chapter made me think a little of Scrooge.

Regarding Dickens’ comment about married ladies, he does seem to harbor (probably common) romantic notions about young girls, and yet depict the older, married women they turn into as often silly. Going back in my mind through the female characters of his I’ve met, I did think of exceptions, one in Bleak House in particular. But he does appear to have a bias.

My favorite quote: “Nothing occurring, however, to realise her apprehensions, she endeavoured to fix her attention more closely on her book, in which by degrees she became so much interested, that she had read on through several chapters without heed of time or place …” What a comfort reading is!
Kathleen C.

[Lori]

Yes, Kathleen, I was also glad to see Kate strike back as Nicholas did! So she’s not as meek as we think.

I was immediately drawn into the visuals of the language Dickens uses when Kate and her mother are preparing her dress for the dinner. There is a fairy tale quality here and I kept thinking of Cinderella getting ready for the ball. Mrs. N dreaming of a potential Prince Charming. The hackney coach takes her and brings her home and the detail of losing the comb from her hair (like a slipper) but Ralph catches it and gives it back.

My favorite quote was after Ralph says “God Bless You”:

The blessing seemed to stick in Mr. Ralph Nickleby’s throat, as if it were not used to the thoroughfare, and didn’t know the way out.

[Paul]

" 'Here is MIss Nickleby,' observed Sir Mulberry, 'wondering why the deuce somebody doesn't make love to her.' "

Although a crass observation in the extreme, I dare say that Sir Mulberry is absolutely correct in his assessment of Kate's thought processes. But I also expect that he is unaware of the disgust in which she is likely holding the dinner, her uncle, and his guests. I dare say that she is fully cognizant of the reality of the situation, that she is being held out as a commodity (marriageable perhaps) to further her uncle's prospects among his gang of fellow discounters, fleecers, cons, swindlers, "pick"ers and "plucker"s (similarity to Dickens' choice of names fully intended)

[Paul]

Bionic Jean wrote: "where Kate is introduced to Lord Frederick Verisoft. (His name should tickle your fancy I suspect, Paul)"

Yep ... sure did. The names of that entire motley crew were wordplays cleverly chosen to reflect their motives and their positions in the set piece drama of Nickleby's business dinner with Kate tethered as bait to ensnare the hapless Verisopht and to supplant Hawk's attempts at fleecing the same target.

[Katy]

Lori wrote: "Yes, Kathleen, I was also glad to see Kate strike back as Nicholas did! So she’s not as meek as we think.

I was immediately drawn into the visuals of the language Dickens uses when Kate and her m..."

The blessing seemed to stick in Mr. Ralph Nickleby’s throat, as if it were not used to the thoroughfare, and didn’t know the way out.

Lori, that was my favorite quote also. How descriptive!

[Katy]

Bionic Jean wrote: "What a shocker of a chapter! No wonder all the illustrators chose to portray this one.

It's interesting that the 3 later illustrators chose the same scene - but a different one from the one [auth..."

I am wondering if, at the end, Ralph Nickleby's reaction to Kate's resemblance to her father was caused by the fact that he has a heart or if he is feeling guilty for something relating to his brother. It could because of how he is using his brother's wife and children or maybe something else that we do not know about yet. He may not feel guilt about anything he does to the living, but it may be harder to answer to the dead if you believe in an afterlife.

[Kelly]

Wow, so many great observations made already!

What a powerhouse of a chapter. We see Kate rightfully call out her uncle and we see her uncle soften. We see Ralph's circle of "friends" and his disregard for loving familial ties, yet we see him almost regret what he pulled Kate into.

Lori, I love your observation about the fairy tale quality of Kate's preparations. I was struck by the mice but didn't see the Cinderella-like illusions until you pointed it out!

I made a rather immature observation of Kate joining "her mother as usual at the street corner." I don't believe Dickens is alluding to anything lewd here but the wording made me chuckle a little.

I also enjoyed these phrases:
Mrs Nickleby "then flew off, at an acute angle, to a committee of ways and means ... [then] flew off at another angle..." This was a great way to describe her ramblings!

I marked the passages about married ladies and the one about the blessing getting stuck in Ralph's throat, as well as the discussion of Ralph being able to boldly walk into any poverty-stricken home and demand debts despite a child being on their deathbed there because it was just business, yet Kate made him feel "awkward and nervous".

[Kelly]

Katy said, "He may not feel guilt about anything he does to the living, but it may be harder to answer to the dead if you believe in an afterlife."

Ooh what a chilling look into Ralph's psyche, Katy! If you're correct, I wonder what it could be that made Ralph have a guilty conscience. My first read of it made me think he was only being nostalgic.

[Chris]

Thanks, Jean, for all the illustrations. My edition only had the first one you inserted. I found it interesting how the various artists drew Mulberry Hawk, so very different! And the names! I was wondering how Lord Verisoft would be, both in demeaner and physically with that name. Too funny, And Hawk...quite the predator, like a hawk going after a Dove.

I loved that Kate told off Ralph and how those words made him shrink, stop to think and act in support of her.

To go back to the beginning of the chapter, I wondered why the other employees rallied around Miss Knag and against Kate. Knag is such an obsequious individual who thinks way too much of herself. Do they fear that she may have some influence over their continued employment, despite her comedown with Mrs. Mantalini?

[Paul]

Chris wrote: " I wondered why the other employees rallied around Miss Knag and against Kate."

Obsequious, sycophantic brown-nosing has probably been around for a long, long time. I doubt if it's a modern concept!

[Shirley (stampartiste)]

What a fascinating chapter on the (hopefully, lasting) evolution of Ralph Nickleby! When he brings Kate into a room full of vulgar men she has never met before, and even Ralph Nickleby was a relative stranger to her, I was filled with disgust at Nickleby. I don't see Peter's comment anymore (it was message 189), but he was spot-on when he said "It is evident that Ralph sees his niece as a piece of chattel, a bargaining chip for many, if not all the men at the party.". It disgusted me that Ralph put Kate in that position - just a step higher than a prostitute, in my opinion. At that point in the story, Ralph had no love in his heart for Kate.

But gradually, ever so gradually, we see Ralph coming face to face with what he has done and how he has treated Kate, and oh! the transformation... It was heartwarming to behold:

1. When Kate is unnerved at the prospect of the "gentlemen" placing bets on whether she will look into Sir Mulberry's face, Ralph, with "an unusual huskiness, as though he spoke unwillingly, and would rather that the proposition had not been broached..." tries to reassure her, "there is nothing in it."

2. After Ralph kicks Sir Mulberry out of the upstairs room, Ralph "looked restlessly toward ... his niece" and thought to himself "...here was a young girl, who had done no wrong but that of coming into the world alive; who had patiently yielded to all his wishes; who had tried so hard to please him -- above all, who didn't owe him money -- and he feels awkward and nervous." He then tentatively moves his chair closer and closer to her (as a frightened pup would sidle up to a stranger), and tells her "Hush, my dear!" And then, to calm her, Ralph "walked to and fro, with his niece leaning on his arm; quelled by her eye, and actually trembling beneath her touch.

3. In leaving his home, he supports her down the stairs, adjusts her shawl, and performs other little kindnesses "for the first time in his life."

4. And my favorite part of the chapter, when Ralph looked up at Kate seated in the coach and saw the face of his dead brother in her and "staggered while he looked, and reeled back into his house, as a man who had seen a spirit from some world beyond the grave."
I am hoping we have a changed man in Mr. Ralph Nickleby!

Jean, I'm glad you brought up the subject of that strange broadbrush comment Dickens made about married women. At first I thought this may be in response to a spat Dickens may have had with his wife the day he wrote that - LOL - but now knowing about Dickens' feelings toward his mother, the comment "the slight degree of vagueness and uncertainty in which they are usually developed" seems more likely to be a jab at his mother. It's funny to me, anyway!

I loved all the favorite quotes already mentioned. I underlined the same ones. LOL

And, thank you for the illustrations, Jean. It's funny, but all three "Kates" are depicted differently, and the picture in my head is a much younger, meeker woman-child.

Sorry this is so long. I loved this chapter in spite of the disgusting "gentlemen" present.

[Peter]

What a chapter! It begins distastefully with the phrase ‘The bile and rancour’ and quickly races to the phrase that Jean points out regarding Ralph and his ‘cold glistening eye.’ Ralph Nickleby becomes, to me at least, one of Dickens’s most hated villains. Let's face it. Ralph’s dinner party is little more than an opportunity to display Kate to a group of debauched men. She is a trophy to be won.

As mentioned above, Dickens has created quite the cast of villains with very suggestive names. Mulberry Hawk is suggestive as is Pyke, Pluck, and the very suggestive Verisopht. When we link these men to Ralph Nickleby a picture of depravity and debt becomes clearer.

For me, what intensifies this chapter occurs before Kate even arrives at her uncle’s home. When Kate gets in the coach to go to her uncle’s party, the coachman and the horses ‘rattled, and jangled, and whipped, and cursed, and swore, and tumbled on together, till they came to Golden Square.’

There is much physicality in the chapter. The interaction, or should I say, the aggression of Hawk towards Kate, is unsettling.

One question I have which has been raised by Jean is why would the Browne illustration not focus on the interaction of Hawk and Kate? Clearly, the illustrators that followed Browne all found Hawk the centre of attention. Could it be Dickens did not want to put too much attention onto Hawk? That I doubt, but if so, why?

[Jim]

What a fantastic piece of theatre we have in Chapter 19!
This is one of those rare occasions where Dickens delibertely set out to shock his readers and he certainly succeeded! I sense that this (like Nicholas's bold attack upon Squeers) represents another turning point in the novel. Kate has revealed herself to be made of sterner stuff than might have been expected; and Ralph's ironclad demeanor has been, at least for the moment, shaken, revealing the remnants of the human he perhaps once was.
I'm reminded of that moment in A Christmas Carol where Scrooge as an observer of Fezziwig's party is disturbed at recalling the old man's kindness.

[Kathleen]

I assume that the dinner party is on a Sunday night, since Kate works long hours every working day.

[Claudia]

Peter wrote: "What a chapter! It begins distastefully with the phrase ‘The bile and rancour’ and quickly races to the phrase that Jean points out regarding Ralph and his ‘cold glistening eye.’ Ralph Nickleby bec..."

You described very well the situation. Alone the sudden invitation to a dinner by an uncle who seemed to have disposed of his relatives (Nicholas sent as an assistant to that horrible "school", the Nickleby ladies moved to a huge dilapidated house full of mice and cobwebs, Kate sent to work at a somehow awkward milliner workshop) was suspicious. Then the preparations for the dinner (dress and all) and the way the narrator described the trip to Ralph's house (great point), the social event with men only, all with telling names... Sir Mulberry Hawk on top of that!

[Paul]

Jim wrote: "What a fantastic piece of theatre we have in Chapter 19! This is one of those rare occasions where Dickens delibertely set out to shock his readers and he certainly succeeded!"

Over a long reading career, I've managed to notch my belt with a goodly number of Dickens' novels and short stories and I'll admit to being very hard pressed to recall any single chapter or scene that Dickens created with a harder hitting more dramatic stomach-churning visceral impact than this one.

A couple of competitors (IMO) do come to mind - Nicholas's fight with Wackford Squeers and his clandestine departure from Dotheboys Hall with Smike, of course; (view spoiler)[the tragic death of Dombey's son at the seaside and Dombey's heartless decision to push his daughter out of his life in DOMBEY AND SON; and, Sydney Carton's bravery and heroism coupled with his immortal closing lines in the closing scene of A TALE OF TWO CITIES (hide spoiler)].

Does anyone else recall particular scenes from other Dickens novels that hit them as hard as this one?

[Katy]

Kelly wrote: "Katy said, "He may not feel guilt about anything he does to the living, but it may be harder to answer to the dead if you believe in an afterlife."

Ooh what a chilling look into Ralph's psyche, Ka..."

You may be right, Kelly. Maybe Ralph was just being nostalgic and I am reading too much into it. Everyone else here seems to be giving him the benefit of the doubt. It just seemed like he had a pretty strong reaction when he saw his brother in Kate's face.

[Sue]

One thing I recall keeps Ralph Nickleby in the negative books for me. As I remember, as he was arguing with Hawk after confronting him with Kate, Sir Hawk guessed that Ralph’s primary reason for being angry was that he intended to dangle Kate in front of Lord Verisoft (what a name!) and Hawk had spoiled the plan. Hawk, of course, didn’t care at all.

Makes me wonder what real relationship Ralph has with these men. They appear to all have titles while he has money. In Dickens’s time a man with money still wouldn’t be on equal footing with titled men, would he? I know that his brother was considered a gentleman but that isn’t the same is it?

I liked the same lines as others, especially the sentence about the effects of uttering a blessing on Ralph’s body.

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

What great comments from everyone!

Lori - I especially like your description of the fairy tale writing - and imagination of Mrs Nickleby - as if Cinderella is going to a ball. Beautifully picked up, as of course Charles Dickens loved fairy tales and put such imagery in his fiction all his life; never more so than in his next novel The Old Curiosity Shop (as you probably know 😊)

So, for Nicholas Nickleby ... we have already seen the big bad Ogre and Mrs. Ogre, and we have two young innocents; naive but honest and courageous. I wonder if we will have a fairy godmother too 🤔

Katheen C - I'm glad you picked up on those rather sour comments on females by Charles Dickens too. I wondered if my radar was going into overdrive there 😆

So often I pounce on people (not here usually though) who will insist on saying that Charles Dickens's females are all the same: weak and passive, as that's not the case at all! He writes some incredibly strong women - yes, in Bleak House - and none more so than in Dombey and Son, which has more female characters than male ones.

He has strong females in every novel, (males too!) and some are quite terrifying. But there's no doubt he has a soft spot for young 17 year old ones, and being a man of his time, he portrays his young heroines as kind and virtuous. Equally he is very very good at portraying silly middle-aged or elderly women. Sometimes I get the feeling that contemporary readers feel he is "not allowed" to do this because he is a male writer. Nobody complains that Jane Austen did this, but once a female is over 40 in her novels, they are at severe risk of her waspish tongue.

But this is a topic which will run and run. Thankfully we do not see many carping comments like that one ostensibly from his narrator.

[Kathleen]

Paul wrote: "Does anyone else recall particular scenes from other Dickens novels that hit them as hard as this one?"

You make a very good point, Paul, but I do think Dickens is exceptionally good at this stuff. Two that come to my mind are the opening of Great Expectations, with Pip and the convict, and another is the (view spoiler)[shipwreck and death of Ham and Steerforth (hide spoiler)] in David Copperfield. But each scene has different qualities. Dickens is a wonder!

[Bionic Jean, "Dickens Duchess"]

Kathleen C. - I've just replied to your previous comment 😆yes, I agree Charles Dickens is brilliant at scenes of great drama, and evidently has a strong visual image in his mind as he writes it. Another great example there; thanks for putting it under a spoiler tag 😊 (I had messaged Paul, as I didn't really want to delete his as they are also good ones. It's still quite early where he lives, I think.)