[John Forster], from an unsigned review of Nicholas Nickleby, Examiner

Forster did Dickens proud in the Examiner, with nine notices of Nickleby. In No. 1 he detected all the old Pickwick virtues, ‘with the addition of even better promise on the score of well-laid design, and of greater truth and precision of character’ (1 April 1838, 195). Nos. V–VI showed that ‘Nickleby is much superior to Pickwick…in the force and precision of its characters—and already includes a gallery of faces familiar to us as our own’ (23 September 1838, 595). The death of Ralph Nickleby much impressed him: ‘we have never quoted anything finer from the writings of Mr Dickens’ (6 October 1839, 629). The concluding review, on 27 October, while confirming the claim Forster had often made for this and earlier novels, that Dickens was of classic stature, is more explicit than usual about his faults.