Other editions of book David Copperfield

David Copperfield is the eighth novel by Charles Dickens. The novel's full title is, The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account). It was first published as a serial in 1849–50, and as a book in 1850. Many elements of the novel follow events in Dickens' own life, and it is often considered as his veiled autobiography.[2] It was Dickens' favorite among his own novels. In the preface to the 1867 edition, Dickens wrote, "like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And his name is David Copperfield."

"Of all my books, I like this the best." So said Charles Dickens of David Copperfield, his most autobiographical novel, which incorporates large portions of a memoir that he had earlier abandoned. This celebrated coming-of-age story marks Dickens's initial use of a first-person narrator and includes two of his most memorable characters: the villainous and cunning Uriah Heep and Mr. Micawber, young David's penniless but amiable friend, whom Dickens based on his own father. David Copperfield succeeds as a novel not simply because of the drama and picaresque adventures of its hero's childhood, but because of its powerful theme of innocent idealism threatened by brutal materialism, and its dazzling array of some of the most unforgettable characters in our literature. This edition features 39 full-page b&w line drawings by H. K. Browne, and is printed from the classic Gadshill Edition of the work of Dickens, incorporating a text carefully corrected by the author in 1867-68.

A bestseller that gripped the nation when it was first published, The Old Curiosity Shop is a novel of sharp contrasts: of life and death, youth and age, desire and innocence, humour and villainy. For the character of Little Nell, the beautiful child thrown into a shadowy, terrifying world, Dickens drew on a tragedy in his own life, the death at the age of seventeen of his sister-in-law Mary Hogarth. Five years later he wrote, 'the desire to be buried next her is as strong upon me now ... and I know (for I don't think there ever was love like that I bear her) that it will never diminish.' The sorrows of Nell and her grandfather are offset by Dickens's creation of a dazzling contemporary world inhabited by some of his most brilliantly drawn characters -- the eloquent ne'er-do-well Dick Swiveller; the hungry maid known as the 'Marchioness'; the mannish lawyer Sally Brass; Quilp's brow-beaten mother-in-law, and Quilp himself, the lustful, vengeful dwarf, whose demonic energy makes a vivid counterpoint to Nell's purity.

David Copperfield, is the eighth novel by Charles Dickens. The novel's full title is, The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account).It was first published as a serial in 1849–50, and as a book in 1850. Many elements of the novel follow events in Dickens' own life, and it is often considered as his veiled autobiography. It was Dickens' favorite among his own novels. In the preface to the 1867 edition, Dickens wrote, "like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And his name is David Copperfield."

Considered to be the most autobiographical of all Dickens's novels Cast out by his cruel stepfather to the brutal boarding school Salem House, young David Copperfield quickly learns that he must fight for a better life. After discovering his mother has died while he has been away, David is left all alone in the world and is sent to work in his stepfather's factory. He decides his only option is to run away, so he escapes London and finds his way to Dover. Once there he hopes to be taken in by his only known relative, his eccentric Aunt Betsy Trotwood—but will he ever be able to find the love and security he needs?