This post has been contributed by Dano Cammarota.

As a rule, and often unconsciously, I approach literature from a historical perspective. It is my comfort zone and understandably the works of Charles Dickens provide a plethora of history woven seamlessly into the narrative. At the Dickens Society Symposium in July 2019, I framed Dickens’s third novel within the economic upheaval of the 1830s and presented a paper, “Opium, Muffins, and Tea: The Setting of Nicholas Nickleby”. As Dickens left several ambiguous clues as to how Ralph Nickleby made his fortune, I simply “followed the money” and considered the Opium Wars (1839-42), when Britain sold large quantities of opium to China, controlling vast wealth and in essence paying for the tea consumed in Britain.

At the opening of chapter two, Dickens presents the idea that Ralph Nickleby is described in terms of what he is not, rather than revealing his profession: “it would have been impossible to mention any recognized profession to which he belonged” and “no mention of his business be made out of doors” (Nicholas Nickleby, Ch. 2). Several additional inferences in the text suggest that Ralph Nickleby was dealing in illegal opium, grown in India and shipped to China, for enormous profits. At the heart of the narrative is a failed investment by Nicholas Nickleby Sr., establishing the premise for young Nickleby’s responsibility for supporting his mother and sister. Whatever follows is a result of financial ruin and hurtles Nicholas into the adventures he must endure to survive.

The banking systems of both Britain and the United States were in dire need of capital and stability, as the Panic of 1837 set off record losses. As a result of irresponsible speculation and unmonitored trade, many fraudulent contracts and companies were created, outlining enormous gains for investors while hiding actual costs. In a casual conversation about shares between Ralph Nickleby and Mr. Bonney, it is clear that insider trading is Ralph Nickleby’s specialty and swindling investors, perhaps even his own brother, is a regular occurrence (Nicholas Nickleby, Chapter 2).

The dealings of the “United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company”, a fiction created by Dickens as the model for a profitable British corporation,reveal how government officials allowed shady business deals to benefit a select group of investors. In actuality, when the East India Company’s monopoly over the opium trade ended in 1834, private citizens stepped in to fill the void, making enormous profits through fraudulent speculation.  Trade with India and China was now open to all licensed British merchants and citizens; those who had previously been exempt from the market were now players. The Government, responsible for not renewing the East India Company’s charter, also became participants in the illicit trade of opium as it benefited both Empire and Exchequer.

The Muffin Company dealt with vast capital, “five million, in five hundred thousand shares of ten pounds each” (Nicholas Nickleby, Chapter 2). The reason Dickens uses muffins (an innocent and wholesome food staple) is to disguise the appalling nature of the opium trade. The fiscal principles, or lack thereof, in dealing with opium are applied to muffins and the vital outreach to gain more muffin consumers. Dickens conveys the urgency for more muffin users by extending the scope of distribution to include “the poorer class of people who ought to be muffin consumers, and their despair by being placed beyond the reach of that nutritious article” (Nicholas Nickleby Chapter 2). The financial goals of the muffin company are similar to the founding charter of the East India Company, which dealt in opium for centuries. Here Dickens underscores how muffins, like opium, need to be distributed for maximum dependence:

firstly, by prohibiting under heavy penalties all private muffin traders of every description and secondly, by supplying the public generally, and the poor at their own homes, with muffins of first quality at reduced prices.

(Nicholas Nickleby, Chapter 2)

Dickens, concealing deceit in a muffin company, is disguising the true nature of pernicious business practices in London which were sanctioned by the government. The muffin company is specifically created to expose Ralph Nickleby’s greed and exploitation, framing the financial narrative and involving innocent and guilty alike. Commerce wise, both muffins and opium have the same business model: sell to the masses and collect enormous profits; control the product and control the market; deliver product promptly; provide home enjoyment for anyone willing to pay. The Chinese were physically addicted to opium but the British government and businessmen were addicted financially. Opium was the keystone factor in the development of the British Empire in the nineteenth century; it created a mass market culture and allowed tea to become the national drink.

Prior to 1820, the East India Company kept the price of opium artificially high, as the Company did not want to antagonize the Chinese government, and sold only limited quantities at high prices. However, the Industrial Revolution, responsible for the increase of the mechanized production of cotton in factories in northern England, meant that the market was flooded with mass-produced textiles. The surplus textiles found a ready market in India and for the Indians to buy more, they needed to produce more opium. Opium flooded the market and the price dropped. Opium is a veiled theme in Nicholas Nickleby and central to the British way of life as it infiltrated and affected the economy, industry, and shipping. The more tea the British population consumed, the greater the quantity of opium required to be purchased by the Chinese. The tea bought and shipped from China was paid with silver from opium sales. The money was in opium, not muffins.

The United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company has nothing to do with muffins. It is an ingenious construct by Dickens for discussing and disguising current trade practices, the economic boom, and business deals based on speculation. It explains the loss and financial ruin of investors who gambled on a drug that was a risky enterprise. Using a muffin company to explain economics is pure satire; screening the noxious side of the opium trade and exposing British politics and policies explains the setting of Nicholas Nickleby.

Selected Bibliography

• Beeching, Jack. The Chinese Opium Wars. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975.
• Booth, Martin. Opium: A History. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996.
• Dickens, Charles. Nicholas Nickleby. New York: Penguin Books, 1999. (1839).
• Examination of the Objections Commonly Urged Against the East India Company’s Commercial and Financial Management, An.  London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, 1813.
• Fay, Peter Ward. The Opium War 1840-1842. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1997.
• Grace, Richard J. Opium and Empire.  London: McGill-Queen’s Univ. Press, 2014.
• Inglis, Lucy. Milk of Paradise A History of Opium. New York: Pegasus Books, 2019.
• LePichon, Alain. China Trade and Empire. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2006.
• Lepler, Jessica M. The Many Panics of 1837: People, Politics, and the Creation of A Transatlantic Financial Crisis. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013.
• Milligan, Barry. Pleasures and Pains: Opium and the Orient in Nineteenth-century British Culture. Charlottesville: Univ. Press of Virginia, 1995.
• Rappaport, Erika. A Thirst for Empire: How Tea Shaped the Modern World. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 2017.
• Thelwall, A.S. The Iniquities of the Opium Trade. London: Wm. H. Allen & Co., 1839.