Description

"Like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child," Charles Dickens once wrote, "and his name is David Copperfield." Dickens' seventh novel 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 young 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 novel's great appeal lies in its memorable cast of characters, among them Mr. Murdstone, the brutal stepfather; the scheming clerk Uriah Heep; the perpetually indebted but exuberantly optimistic Mr. Micawber; and warm-hearted but wildly eccentric Aunt Betsey Trotwood. Dickens' genius was comic, and David Copperfield reflects his view of existence as a mixture of laughter and tears -- with laughter uppermost.