When Nicholas Nickleby`s father dies, the family is left with no money. Nicholas and his family ask their Uncle Ralph for help. Ralph finds Nicholas a job as a teacher at Dotheboy`s Hall, a terrible school in the north of England. There Nicholas has to protect the orphan Smike from the school`s evil headmaster. Macmillan English Explorers have been written specifically for young learners of English. They bring first language teaching methods to reading lessons in first foreign language classrooms.