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The Penguin English Library features the best novels in the English language. Get lost in the amazing stories, browse the Penguin English Library. |
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Product Description
Penguin Classics give you the best possible editions of Charles Dickens's novels, including all the original illustrations, useful and informative introductions, the definitive, accurate text as it was meant to be published, a chronology of Dickens's life and notes that fill in the background to the book.
David Copperfield is the novel Dickens regarded as his 'favourite child' and is considered his most autobiographical. As David recounts his experience from childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist, Dickens draws openly and revealingly on his own life. Among the gloriously vivid cast of characters are David's tyrannical stepfather, Mr Murdstone; his brilliant, but ultimately unworthy, school-friend Steerforth; his formidable aunt, Betsey Trotwood; the eternally humble, yet treacherous Uriah Heep; frivolous, enchanting Dora; and the magnificently impecunious Micawber, one of literature's great comic creations.
About the Author
Charles Dickens (1812-70) was a political reporter and journalist whose popularity as a novelist was established with the success of Pickwick Papers (1836-7). His other novels include Great Expectations and Bleak House.
Jeremy Tambling is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Hong Kong.
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First Sentence
Whether I shall turn out to be the hero1 of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Whether I shall turn out to be the hero1 of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I first read "David Copperfield" several years ago, and since then it has remained my favorite book. This is based mainly on the early section of the book, the first 12 chapters, or 160-ish pages, detailing the earliest years of the title character, filled with events so vivid and moving and characters so alive that they can't be forgotten. Many are based on Dickens' own childhood experiences, such as David's employment in a blacking factory, which echoes Dickens' own fate after his father (the original of Mr. Micawber) was imprisoned for debt. Dickens seems to have been scarred for life by the business of the blacking factory, less by what befell him there than by the sense of being abandoned by his parents to a life of menial labour, and the sense of social shame, which was obviously important to Dickens, and is a central aspect of Pip's character in "Great Expectations". The immediacy and evocative power of many of the early episodes is unparalleled, in other Dickens books, or any books by anybody. It's genius without equal.
It must be noted that this is a highly uneven book. One cannot hope to divine the mystery of how the same mind who wrote of, say, David's "memorable birthday" in Chapter IX can also be responsible for the crass emotionalism that peppers the later part of the book (the character of Agnes Wickfield, especially, being the source of grave excesses). Alas, this dichotomy is only too familiar to the habitual reader of Dickens. His flaws are so great as would be fatal to almost any writer, but they are outweighed by his unique gifts, and these gifts are nowhere more in evidence than in parts of "David Copperfield".
Note: I also found Jeremy Tambling's introduction to this Penguin edition to be a particularly interesting and insightful specimen of its kind.
It must be noted that this is a highly uneven book. One cannot hope to divine the mystery of how the same mind who wrote of, say, David's "memorable birthday" in Chapter IX can also be responsible for the crass emotionalism that peppers the later part of the book (the character of Agnes Wickfield, especially, being the source of grave excesses). Alas, this dichotomy is only too familiar to the habitual reader of Dickens. His flaws are so great as would be fatal to almost any writer, but they are outweighed by his unique gifts, and these gifts are nowhere more in evidence than in parts of "David Copperfield".
Note: I also found Jeremy Tambling's introduction to this Penguin edition to be a particularly interesting and insightful specimen of its kind.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Leo Tolstoy described this as the greatest of all novels - and he was no mean judge. Autobiographical, yet picturing all of Victorian society, full of unforgettable characters, moral yet uproariously funny, vividly written - it is an unparallelled achievement.
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
You shouldn't read this book just because it's a so called classic or that it's on a list of books you should read before you die, or maybe because you'll get an approving nod from your English teacher. Just read this book for pure pleasure. This is a wonderfully enjoyable book,and contains some of Dickens's most famous creations such as the hapless Mr. Micawber and the deceptively obsequious Uriah Heep.
Love, jealousy, cruelty, heartbreak, joy, dejection, lonliness,the whole vast panorama of human experience is contained within these wonderful pages. I have a theory that people get put off Dickens by some of the awful adapatations these days for TV and film. A recent film version of Nicholas Nickleby was abysmal. Don't let this put you off Dickens. This book may look daunting in size but you will love getting lost in it.
Dickens based a lot of his own personal childhood ordeal on this story, later he was to call this book his 'favourite child'. You will understand why when you read it.
Take some time out from the 21st Century and bathe your neglected human soul in David Copperfield.
Love, jealousy, cruelty, heartbreak, joy, dejection, lonliness,the whole vast panorama of human experience is contained within these wonderful pages. I have a theory that people get put off Dickens by some of the awful adapatations these days for TV and film. A recent film version of Nicholas Nickleby was abysmal. Don't let this put you off Dickens. This book may look daunting in size but you will love getting lost in it.
Dickens based a lot of his own personal childhood ordeal on this story, later he was to call this book his 'favourite child'. You will understand why when you read it.
Take some time out from the 21st Century and bathe your neglected human soul in David Copperfield.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Outstanding
A masterpiece. My first, though not last, foray into Dickens, the usual misconceptions having put me off tackling his work prior to this. Read more
Published on 3 July 2008 by Sibby the Cat
Worth Reading.
I read this book because it was in the Big Read top 100. I wasn't really expecting to like it, but I did. Read more
Published on 14 Jun 2006 by Mandy
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