Content Warning: This section references child abuse, sexual harassment, and suicide.

Some decades before the main narrative takes place, a “gentleman” named Godfrey Nickleby finally gets married. However, his financial situation is unstable, and when his wife bears him two sons, money becomes even more necessary. Godfrey unexpectedly inherits some money and a little bit of property after his uncle, Ralph, dies. Godfrey uses the inheritance to establish a modest but stable farm in Devonshire. When he dies, he leaves the farm to his son Nicholas while splitting his money between Nicholas and his other son, Ralph. After their father’s death, Ralph and Nicholas grow distant. Ralph speculates with his money while Nicholas maintains the farm and gets married. Nicholas’s growing family quickly overwhelms his finances, so his wife encourages him to speculate to raise more money for their children’s futures. Nicholas loses all his money in a bad venture.

Ralph Nickleby has done well for himself, though no one can pinpoint if he works or how he maintains his lifestyle. Ralph employs a former gentleman, Newman Noggs, whom Ralph hired when Newman sought Ralph’s help getting out of debt. Most people don’t know that Ralph pays Newman a pitiably low salary or that Ralph relies on Newman to keep his business secrets.