Part 1, Act 1

The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby briefly outlines the reasons that Nicholas Nickleby, his sister Kate, and their mother travel to London—because of the father's death—and then portrays a town meeting wherein a large muffin company ousts private "muffin boys" through a ruse of guaranteeing lower muffin prices to help the poor. Surveying the selling of the new company's stock is Nicholas's parsimonious uncle, Ralph Nickleby, to whom the now-destitute relatives turn for assistance. Ralph places Nicholas as an assistant in Dotheboys Hall, a Yorkshire boarding school, and Kate in a milliner's shop, coldly splitting them apart. Kate and Mrs. Nickleby move out of their temporary lodgings with the kind portrait artist, Miss La Creevy, and into one of Ralph's sparsely furnished rental homes. Nicholas is skeptical of the one-eyed schoolmaster, Mr. Wackford Squeers, with his appalling lack of knowledge and...