Charles Dickens had an understanding of mid-Victorian society second to none, and genius and energy massive enough to make the absurdities and terrors of that society come alive on the page. Nicholas Nickleby, with its episodes of chicanery in finance and education, and the dramatic intensity with which it tells the story of its open-hearted protagonists - a young brother and sister at sea in a dangerous world - and its frightening villain, the magnificently rendered Ralph Nickleby, represents Dickens at his clear-eyed, indignant and mesmerizing best.