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
History of the British penny (1714–1901) public were dissatisfied by the state of the copper coinage. Much of it was worn or defaced by advertisements, and 14 percent of the pennies in commerce were Boulton's 1797 cartwheels. The fact that pennies of different specifications circulated side by side precluded the weighing of quantities of copper coin to ascertain the value. Both sorts of pennies were deemed too heavy for daily use. The copper coins were so heavy that Charles Dickens in "Nicholas Nickleby" had Mr Mantalini contemplate suicide by drowning himself in the Thames, his pockets filled with halfpennies. Thomas Graham, the Master of the Mint,