Other editions of book David Copperfield

One of the most famous and celebrated Victorian coming-of-age novels, David Copperfield charts the adventures and vicissitudes of its eponymous hero's life, from the misery of his childhood after his mother's marriage to the tyrannical Mr Murdstone, through to his first steps as a writer and his search for love and happiness. Along the way he encounters a vast array of gloriously vivid characters – many of whom number among the most memorable in literature – such as the eccentric aunt Betsey Trotwood, the eloquent debtor Wilkins Micawber and the obsequious villain Uriah Heep.Replete with comedy and tragedy in equal measure, and cited by Dickens as “his favourite child"", this partially autobiographical work provides tantalizing glimpses into Dickens's own childhood and remains one of the most enduringly popular novels in the English language.

David Copperfield is the quintessential novel by England's most beloved novelist. Based in part on Dickens's own life, it is the story of a young man's journey from an unhappy and impoverished childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist. Among its gloriously vivid cast of characters, he encounters his tyrannical stepfather, Mr. Murdstone; his formidable aunt, Betsey Trotwood; the eternally humble yet treacherous Uriah Heep; the frivolous, enchanting Dora; and one of literature's great comic creations, the magnificently impecunious Mr. Micawber-a character resembling Dickens's own father. In David Copperfield-the novel he described as his "favorite child"-Dickens drew revealingly on his own experiences to create one of his most exuberant and enduringly popular works, filled with tragedy and comedy in equal measure.

David Copperfield is the story of a young man's adventures on his journey from an unhappy and impoverished childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist. Among the gloriously vivid cast of characters he encounters are his tyrannical stepfather, Mr Murdstone; his brilliant, but ultimately unworthy school-friend James Steerforth; his formidable aunt, Betsey Trotwood; the eternally humble, yet treacherous Uriah Heep; frivolous, enchanting Dora Spenlow; and the magnificently impecunious Wilkins Micawber, one of literature's great comic creations. In David Copperfield - the novel he described as his 'favourite child' - Dickens drew revealingly on his own experiences to create one of the most exuberant and enduringly popular works, filled with tragedy and comedy in equal measure.

o 10 illustrationsFirst published in 1850, David Copperfield was Charles Dickens’ favorite of his novels. This autobiographical, coming-of-age tale recounts the adventures of a strong-willed orphan, as he overcomes one hardship after another. In his preface, Dickens says, “I do not find it easy to get sufficiently far away from this Book, in the first sensations of having finished it, to refer to it with the composure which this formal heading would seem to require. My interest in it, is so recent and strong; and my mind is so divided between pleasure and regret - pleasure in the achievement of a long design, regret in the separation from many companions - that I am in danger of wearying the reader whom I love, with personal confidences, and private emotions.”

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)Charles Dickens’s most celebrated novel and the author’s own favorite, David Copperfield is the classic account of a boy growing up in a world that is by turns magical, fearful, and grimly realistic. In a book that is part fairy tale and part thinly veiled autobiography, Dickens transmutes his life experience into a brilliant series of comic and sentimental adventures in the spirit of the great eighteenth-century novelists he so much admired. Few readers can fail to be touched by David’s fate, and fewer still to be delighted by his story. The cruel Murdstone, the feckless Micawber, the unctuous and sinister Uriah Heep, and David Copperfield himself, into whose portrait Dickens puts so much of his own early life, form a central part of our literary legacy.This edition reprints the original Everyman preface by G. K. Chesterton and includes thirty-nine illustrations by Phiz.From the Hardcover edition.

Like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And his name is David Copperfield. It has, perhaps, the most unforgettable cast of characters ever assembled in a work of fiction: Mr. Micawber, Uriah Heep, Aunt Betsey Trotwood, the Murdstones, Mr. Dick, Peggotty, and, of course, David Copperfield himself. Follow the life and times of David Copperfield as he grows from a unwanted stepson through to adulthood and all the well-known characters who enter and leave his life. The story is simple enough to start. David's mother marries a man, Murdstone, who makes life hell for her and young David. David has the courage to rebel against the tyrant and is sent off to boarding school and later to a blacking factory. No writer before or since has been able to create an emotional bond between book and reader the way Charles Dickens could. Some rate Copperfield as Dickens' finest work and the standard by which the world's great fiction should be judged. Charles Dickens said that his favorite work of his own was David Copperfield. This is a truly spectacular piece of literature that deserves every bit of its status as a classic. Lovingly recreated as an mp3 audio DVD you can listen to one of the modern day classics again and again. Ideal for children, teachers, students, the whole family and even the young at heart. - MP3 DVD compatible player (or a computer with DVD drive) required to play this CD Version: Unabridged Language: English Reader: Various Format: MP3 DVD Tracks / Chapters: 65 Chapters Total running time: 35:01:02

Intimately rooted in the author's own biography and written as a first-person narrative, "David Copperfield" charts a young man's progress through a difficult childhood in Victorian England to ultimate success as a novelist, finding true love along the way. Jeremy Tambling's provocative Introduction reveals subtle themes relevant today in Dickens' favorite work. 39 illustrations.

David Copperfield (1849-50) was Dickens's favorite novel: 'Of all my books', he wrote, 'I like it the best.' Strikingly autobiographical in its childhood scenes, it relates David's history from birth to young manhood, and the host of characters he meets on his journey of self-knowledge: Mr Micawber, the Peggottys, Betsey Trotwood, Steerforth and Uriah Heep among them.

"Like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child," confessed Charles Dickens in the preface of this novel, "and his name is David Copperfield." Millions of readers have taken young David into their hearts as well, weeping over his misfortunes and exulting in his triumphs. Dickens' seventh novel, "David Copperfield," appeared in 1850, by which time he was a British national institution. Based on the author's own tumultuous journey from boy to man, this epic traces David's progress from his mother's sheltering arms to the miseries of boarding-school and sweatshop, and the rewards of friendship, romance, and self-discovery in his vocation as a writer.In addition to its compelling narrative, the great appeal of" David Copperfield" lies in its memorable cast of characters. From Mr. Murdstone, the brutal stepfather, to the scheming clerk Uriah Heep, the novel is peopled by vividly observed characters. Nursemaid Peggoty, bursting with vitality, leaves a trail of flying buttons in her wake. Grandiloquent Mr. Micawber is ever-confident that something will turn up to save his large brood from penury. Kind by wildly eccentric, Aunt Betsey Trotwood accepts counsel from the wise fool, Mr. Dick, and provides a heated reception for trespassing donkeys. Dickens' genius was comic, and "David Copperfield" reflects his view of existence as a mixture of laughter and tears -- with laughter uppermost.

" Like so many fond parents I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child," wrote Charles Dickens. "And his name is David Copperfield." Of all of Dickens's novels, David Copperfield most closely reflects the events of his own life. The story of an abandoned waif who discovers life and love in an indifferent world, this classic tale of childhood is populated with a cast of eccentrics, innocents, and villains who number among the author's greatest creations. "David Copperfield is filled with characters of the most astonishing variety, vividness, and originality," noted Somerset Maugham. "They are not realistic and yet they abound with life. There never were such people as the Micawbers, Pegotty and Barkis, Traddles, Betsey Trotwood and Mr. Dick, Uriah Heep and his mother. They are fantastic inventions of Dickens's exultant imagination, but they have so much vigor, they are so consistent, they are presented with so much conviction, that you believe in them. They are extravagant, but not unreal, and when you have once to know them you can never quite forget them." T. S. Eliot agreed: "Dickens excelled in character; in the creation of characters of greater intensity than human beings." And Virginia Woolf concluded: "In David Copperfield, though char-acters swarm and life flows into every creek and cranny, some common feelings--youth, gaiety, hope--envelops the tumult, brings the scattered parts together, and invests the most perfect of all the Dickens novels with an atmosphere of beauty." The Modern Library has played a significant role in American cultural life for the better part of a century. The series was founded in 1917 by the publishers Boni and Liveright and eight years later acquired by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer. It provided the foun-dation for their next publishing venture, Random House. The Modern Library has been a staple of the American book trade, providing readers with affordable hardbound editions of important works of literature and thought. For the Modern Library's seventy-fifth anniversary, Random House redesigned the series, restoring as its emblem the running torchbearer created by Lucian Bernhard in 1925 and refurbishing jackets, bindings, and type, as well as inaugurating a new program of selecting titles. The Modern Library continues to provide the world's best books, at the best prices.