24The Nicklebys’ social and financial uncertainties are comically echoed in the pretensions to gentility that animate the Kenwigses and Fanny Squeers, and with surprising force in Dickens’s portrayal of

She leaps into a discussion of Shakespeare at the opera by recalling a trip she made to Stratford in a post-chaise:‘Was it a post-chaise though!’ said Mrs Nickleby, considering; ‘yes, it must have been