Minor Characters
Mr. Crummles
Mr. Crummles is Ninetta’s father. He runs a traveling theater company where Nicholas and Smike briefly work. Mr. Crummles is portrayed as having a theatrical and often over-the-top personality, but he also genuinely cares about Nicholas and works to ensure that Nicholas is well taken care of.
Fanny
Fanny is Mr. Squeers and Mrs. Squeers’s daughter. She is sometimes friends and sometimes enemies with Matilda. When Nicholas arrives at Dotheboys Hall, Fanny develops feelings for him. She decides she hates Nicholas, though, after he spurns her advances.
Mrs. Squeers
Mrs. Squeers is Mr. Squeers’s wife and Fanny’s mother. She despises Nicholas for no apparent reason and conspires against him when he works at Dotheboys Hall.
Matilda
Matilda is John’s wife and Fanny’s sometimes friend, sometimes enemy. Fanny, who is single, grows jealous of Matilda after she becomes engaged to John. Along with John, Matilda ultimately becomes closer friends with Nicholas than Fanny.
Mr. Pluck
Mr. Pluck is one of Mulberry’s henchmen, along with Mr. Pyke. Mr. Pluck does Mulberry’s bidding and helps Mulberry carry out his scheme to try and seduce Kate.
Mr. Pyke
Mr. Pyke is one of Mulberry’s henchmen, along with Mr. Pluck. Mr. Pyke does Mulberry’s bidding and helps put Mulberry’s scheme to try and seduce Kate in motion.
Henrietta
Henrietta is an acquaintance of the Kenwigses. She marries Mr. Lillyvick but leaves him for another man not long after their marriage. She is an actor in a well-known company in London.
Miss Snevellicci
Miss Snevellicci is an actor in Mr. Crummles’s theater company. She frequently acts opposite Nicholas, and Nicholas thinks she is talented. She develops feelings for Nicholas, but those feelings never lead anywhere.
Mr. Wititterly
Mr. Wititterly is Mrs. Wititterly’s husband. He is also Kate’s employer when she works for Mrs. Wititterly.
Mr. Folair
Mr. Folair is a comedic actor in Mr. Crummles’s theater troupe. He has a tendency to put his foot in his mouth by telling offensive jokes.
Nicholas Sr.
Nicholas Sr. is Mrs. Nickleby’s husband, Nicholas and Kate’s father, and Ralph’s brother. He dies and leaves the family in debt. His death then becomes the catalyst that drives Nicholas, Kate, and Mrs. Nickleby to leave Devonshire and go to London at the beginning of the novel.
Morleena
Morleena is Mr. Kenwigs and Mrs. Kenwigs’s oldest child. She is also Mr. Lillyvick’s grandniece.
Godfrey
Godfrey is Ralph and Nicholas Sr.’s father, Nicholas and Kate’s grandfather, and Mrs. Nickleby’s father-in-law. Godfrey leaves 3,000 pounds to Ralph when he dies. He also leaves 1,000 pounds and the family farm to Nicholas Sr.
Mr. Curdle
Mr. Curdle is a potential patron whom Nicholas and Miss Snevellicci visit in hopes that he will financially support Mr. Crummles’s play. An off-puttingly self-important man, Mr. Curdle has strong opinions about the preservation of what he calls “the unities” in theatrical works.