The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (play) reception was enthusiastic, critical reception was mixed. Frank Rich in "New York Times" reported dull passages piling up as "dead weight", while John Simon in the "New York Magazine" felt that the work was a "middlebrow enterprise" doing "scant justice" to the novel. In contrast Mel Gussow, again in "The New York Times", noted that ""Nicholas Nickleby" remains true to Dickens – many of the lines are taken directly from the novel, dialogue as well as narration – and to first principles of theater" when describing the RSC's recast production in 1986. Playwright and reviewer Thomas Hischak, writing in retrospect
Nicholas Nickleby style is considered to be episodic and humorous, though the second half of the novel becomes more serious and tightly plotted. Dickens began writing "Nickleby" while still working on "Oliver Twist" and while the mood is considerably lighter, his depiction of the Yorkshire school run by Wackford Squeers is as moving and influential as those of the workhouse and criminal underclass in "Twist". "Nickleby" marks a new development in a further sense as it is the first of Dickens's romances. When it was published the book was an immediate and complete success and established Dickens's lasting reputation. The cruelty of