David Copperfield

by Charles Dickens

Of all my books, I like this the best - Charles Dickens

Full of tragedy and comedy in equal measure and based in part on the author's own life, David Copperfield remains one of the most enduring and popular of Dickens' novels.

Among the memorable cast of characters he encounters along the way are his brutal stepfather, Mr Murdstone; bubbly Nurse Peggotty; his brilliant, but unworthy schoolmate Steerforth, his eccentric aunt, Betsy Trotwood, the scheming clerk Uriah Heep, the enchanting Dora and the magnificent Mr Macawber - a character much like Dickens' own father.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Literature, Romance, Novels

288 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2009

About the author

Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812-1870) was a writer and social critic who created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the twentieth century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity.

Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. Despite his lack of formal education, he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms.

Dickens was regarded as the literary colossus of his age. His 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, remains popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also frequently adapted, and, like many of his novels, evoke images of early Victorian London. His 1859 novel, A Tale of Two Cities, set in London and Paris, is his best-known work of historical fiction. Dickens's creative genius has been praised by fellow writers—from Leo Tolstoy to George Orwell and G. K. Chesterton—for its realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterisations, and social criticism. On the other hand, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf complained of a lack of psychological depth, loose writing, and a vein of saccharine sentimentalism. The term Dickensian is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings, such as poor social conditions or comically repulsive characters.

On 8 June 1870, Dickens suffered another stroke at his home after a full day's work on Edwin Drood. He never regained consciousness, and the next day he died at Gad's Hill Place. Contrary to his wish to be buried at Rochester Cathedral "in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner," he was laid to rest in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. A printed epitaph circulated at the time of the funeral reads: "To the Memory of Charles Dickens (England's most popular author) who died at his residence, Higham, near Rochester, Kent, 9 June 1870, aged 58 years. He was a sympathiser with the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world." His last words were: "On the ground", in response to his sister-in-law Georgina's request that he lie down.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Steven Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

A real read edition made for school children, a classic originally written by Charles Dickson. The story tells the life of David Copperfield from childhood to adulthood.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story goes like this. Because his father died before he was born, he lives with his mom and Peggotty. Then, his mom married a very violent man, Mr.Murdstone and his sister also comes along. And Mr.Murdstone beats David very cruelly and send him to school. David goes to a school at Salem house which is by Mr.Creakle. In the school, he makes a friend called Steerforth and Tommy.

After few days, he heard that his mom died so he returns to home. After that, he decides to go to London and look for his dad's sister, Ms.Betsey. David is then adopted by Ms.Betsey and her good friend, Mr.Dick. Ms.Betsey decides to send him to school which is run by Dr.Strong. Agnes and David becomes best friends because they moved in together with Agnes' dad, Mr.Wickfield.

When David graduates, he visit Yarmouth to meet Peggotty, her family and Mr.Barkis who is now her husband. On the way to Yarmouth, he meets Steerforth, his old friend. And when they return from Yarmouth, Mr. Spenlow invites David to his house for a weekend. There, David meets Spenlow’s daughter, Dora, and falls in love with her. Through Steerforth, David heard that Mr.Barkis is very ill. David return to Yarmouth again, and later on he finally dies. David finds out that Emily is upset over her impending marriage. When Mr.Barkis dies, Little Emily runs away with Steerforth, who she believes will make her a lady.

Ms.Betsey goes to David and inform that Mr.Wickfield has joined into the partnership with Uriah, a snake like young man. And David works very hard to get married with Dora. However, Mr.Spenlow forbids Dora from marrying David. That night, Mr.Spenlow died due to an accident and Dora lives with her two aunts. Meanwhile, Uriah Heep informs Doctor Strong that he suspects Doctor Strong’s wife, Annie, of having an affair with her young cousin, Jack Maldon.

Dora and David marry, and Dora proves a terrible housewife! And Ms.Dartle, Mrs.Steerforth’s ward, summons David and informs him that Steerforth has left Emily. Ms. Dartle adds that Steerforth’s servant, Littimer, has proposed to her and that Emily has run away. Emily and Peggotty decide to move to Australia, as do the Micawbers who first save the day for Agnes and Ms.Betsey by exposing Uriah’s fraud against Mr.Wickfield.

While Ham was rescuing a shipwrecked sailor, the very powerful storm hit Yarmouth and Ham died. And the sailor turns out to be Steerforth. Meanwhile, Dora falls ill and dies. David leaves the country to travel abroad. His love for Agnes grows. When David returns, he and Agnes get married and have several children.



When David's mom died, i thought that it is because of her cruel husband, Mr.Murdstone. Because if he didn't send him to school, she wouldn't miss him so much that she spend lot of days crying. But because Peggotty was always beside her and took care of her, she could withstand.
I like Steerforth but as the story goes to the ending, i thought that he isn't a good person. Even though a beautiful girl, Emily loved him, he didn't do anything and later on, he just left Emily.

I would not like to recommend this book to younger students because there are many characters and many things happening at the same time so they may get confused easily as I did last year.

[Salma Saeed · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the version that I taught my students last year .. they were in a love-hate relationship with it .. I definitely hated it 😂😂🤦🏻‍♀️

[Elena · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the book. It was very good written even though it's not the original version. It almost made me cry twice. :)

[Aleksandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pan od angielskiego mi dał, taka nijaka na jeden wieczór

[Alberto Gutiérrez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy to read, good to start reading English. Very monotonous but as it is not to hard to read, you can handle it

[Abdalrahman Marshoud · Rating 4 out of 5]

أول كتاب أقراه باللغة الانجليزية.
كانت تجربة جميلة ولها ما بعدها
الكتاب جيد كبداية لكل شخص باللغة الانجلزية .

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

"the Trifles are what make up life" or something like that. Quotes from audio books sometimes escape me.
Not quite A Christmas Carol or The Life of Our Lord but way more enjoyable than Great Expectations and Tale of Two Cities

[Derryck Osbourne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Project Read On: Book #3

Such a great book! I would've rated it 5 stars if I hadn't seen the movie a few years ago, which made me aware or at least guess what would happen later on with the story. As always, there are things in the book and the movie that aren't.. (good heavens! I can't remember the word, I clearly am becoming more italian now) let's say.. not the same? Which made me think that the plot of the book is better than that of the movie, at least, in my opinion.

If I have to choose my favourite part and character of this thin and small book (remember, this version is for educating purposes and because of that, they're really thin, written using simple words that are meant for non native english speakers) it would be Mr. Barkis and the part where he told David to write to Peggoty and tell her that Barkis is willing! Haha!

What I think about the characters:
My dear Peggoty, how I wish every woman in the world is as kind as you. Poor Ham and Steerforth, he might be wicked but you can also see just how much charm he has if you listen to David. Poor Dora, silly little Dora, born in the wrong time. Had she been born in our time, she would probably lived a better and longer life, hopefully.

And Agnes, oh Agnes. Will I ever find someone like you? Haha.

Great book by Dickens, how I wish I could read the original version of this book right away.

P.S. He says it's important - Barkis is willing.

[Conor Heffernan · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.7 ⭐

As beautifully written as great expectations however lacking the same strong narrative as that story. Anyone who likes reading Dickens will enjoy this book. The narrative has many many short peaks as opposed to a grand crescendo at any one point.

The copy of the story I read was abridged. I only realised after I had read it. I did find at times it was difficult to keep up with who's who of all the characters but I will chalk this up to the editors choice to remove certain passages from the story which may have helped me get to know the characters better.

[Martha · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars
I'm so sad I did not connect to this. The characters fell flat, it was predictable, and there seemed to be no overarching plot. I was bored. Though a good set-up, it felt like all we saw was David moving from place to place. You can draw comparisons to Great Expectations, but, in my opinion, Great Expectations has more well-rounded, interesting characters and a far more gripping plot, so I'd recommend reading that instead. I feel like I'm missing something here.

[Jannicke Myre · Rating 3 out of 5]

En ting er sikkert; Jeg skal aldri lese den boka her igjen

[J.K. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well written, but I feel like nothing actually happened. 🙄

[Ben Jeapes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an abridged version from Puffin, so presumably aimed at children, but having read it as a 60 year old man I didn't feel talked down to. It preserves the beauty, eloquence and humour of Dickens' writing and gives a very good gist of what happens: David's unhappy childhood, Heep's machinations, Steerforth's vile seductions and Micawber's constant expectation of something better coming along. Children and adults alike are expected to penetrate the sometimes oblique Victorian references and work out their meaning from context, but it's not hard. A very good introduction - but do check the original text on Project Gutenberg to fill in the gaps.

[Στεφη Λουλη · Rating 3 out of 5]

*3,5/5

[Ghaidamo_ · Rating 5 out of 5]

الرواية الاساسية ٨٠٠ صفحه وهنا اختصرت باقل من ذلك ولكن لعل توالي الاحداث واختصارها الشديد افقدها جمالها
عموماً اللي فهمته هو كتيب للي عندهم رغبه في تعلّم اللغة الانجليزيه
واللغه مستواها الخامس من اصل سته ولكن لغتها جداً سهله

[Qwe · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent retelling of a classic, one that I'm yet to read, I found it very much to the point. Although, I do question why some parts of the story were changed (as mentioned by the author in the last few pages) when it seems like it could be retold in this condensed format while still keeping those plot points the same.

[Geir Skårland · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 2015, I think this book has greater value as history and a piece of literary history than as a novel.

It does have its moments, though. Dickens is sometimes critisized for making one-dimensional characters. I find some of these striking and funny. Mr. Micawber's language is highly entertaining and elegant in its overflowering complexity. Some of the characters illustrate excellently how different personalities interplay, for instance the superficial, but kind and charming Dora, trying to cope with unreliable servants or being aware of being unable to complement her husband.

David himself is almost too good to be true, too sentimental and too extensive in his recollections. The story draws on quietly, but lacks suspense. In our time, this story would have been much shorter, and could have left out at least a quarter of its volume, probably more.

What gave me most was the portrait of the period and its thoughts, assumptions and morality. Reading about David's hardships as a boy, which are unthinkable in my milieu, about Dickens expecting a beautiful young woman to marry a much older man out of duty and gratitude, and basing much of his story on the shock of her choosing a really not so horrible nobleman (in the outset) instead.

Even Agnes, the heavenly star of David's life, is praised for her self-effacement to an extent that raises an alarm in a modern reader. Many of the positive female characters live their lives for and through their husbands. David's aunt is a brilliant exception.

Apart from this, which makes for an interesting cultural study, Dickens and Copperfield comes down clearly on the side of goodness. David Copperfield is one of the kindest characters in literary history. The story empathises with harassed children, has eyes for the poor, doesn't cringe at those who society unrightfully turn from, upholds justice, favours good, common people over the privileged and praises goodness, kindness and faithfulness in relationships. It is, in many ways, a really good book, but I find it too long, and to slow-moving and detailed to be really excellent as literature in itself.

[Melis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yorumun aslı: http://kordugumhayaller.blogspot.com/...

Kitap gerçekten güzeldi. Okurken çoğu zaman David'in yaptığı hatalar sizin için kulağa bir küpe oluyor. Konusuna gelirsek:

David, daha doğmadan babasını kaybetmiş zavallı bir çocuktur. Annesi ve yardımcıları Peggotty'den başka kimsesi yoktur. Zaten durumları kötüyken annesi evlenince her şey daha kötü olur. Çünkü evlendiği adam ve kız kardeşi ona hiç de iyi davranmaz. Hatta onu sevgili annesi annesi ve biricik Peggotty'den ayırıp uzaktaki bir okula gönderir.

David bu kötü okulda birkaç arkadaş bulur. Böylece iyi şeyler de olur derken annesi ölür bu sefer de, hem de küçük bebeğiyle! Zavallı David, üvey babasının önce Peggotty'i göndermesi ve sonra da onu çalışmak için kötü bir yere vermesiyle hayatı daha da kötü gitmeye başlar.

Buralara kadar artık bir pes diyorsunuz. Bu çocuk hiç mi gün yüzü görmeyecek diyorsunuz. Ki yazar bizi duyar gibi David'e bir güç ve kararlılık veriyor. Böylece David, uzaktaki halasını bulmaya gidiyor. Zorluklar sonucu halasını buluyor ve artık halasının himayesine giriyor. Okulunu bitirdikten sonra da Londra'ya gidiyor.

Kitap bundan sonra önceki bölümlere nispeten daha iyi oluyor. Tamam yine zorluklar var ve evet, yine aynı saflıkta ama David artık o çaresiz küçük çocuk olmadığından okumak daha keyifliydi. Üstelik Agnes gibi bir koruyucu meleği de vardı. Hikayenin bu kısımlarını size anlatmayacağım çünkü siz de spoiler istemezsiniz daha fazla bence ;)

[Margaretta · Rating 5 out of 5]

**A bit of spoiling**

David Copperfield was written by an English writer, Charles Dickens. Dickens himself said that Copperfield is his most favourite character he has ever written about. It is almost an autobiographical book, since the events in the book are similar to events happened in Dickens' life.

David Copperfield is born into poor family as a half orphan. He lives happy life with his nanny Pegotty and his mom. However this happy life lasts only until his mom decides to marry a man she has recently met, Mr. Murdstone. Mr. Murdstone is a strict man with less patience and very aggressive manners. He and his sister, Ms. Murdstone, (very strict, annoying and dangerous woman indeed) decide to live under one roof with Mrs. and David Copperfields.

After some time, David is sent to boarding school where he meets his new friends, one of them playing an important role in his life afterwards.

When he is 10 he becomes orphan, with no kind soul around. He decides to run away from his work in warehouse and go to his aunt hoping she would take care of him.

Later on he finds his love, friends, job, and will learn a lot about traitors.

I liked this book because it was well written and there was no confusion. There was imagery and figurative language used what made reading enthusiastic and breath-taking. The story is nice and touching.

[Arthur Pedroso, Jr. · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Audio book version: 34 hours, 47 minutes.
The Kindle version: 803 pages.

I mostly listened to the audio book version.

(2.5/5 Stars)

This is my least favorite by far of what I've read from Charles Dickens.

This was originally released in parts on a monthly subscription basis. In those days, higher word count meant longer subscriptions and higher profit for the author.

While I appreciate the themes of family (especially found family) and the kindness and heartache that comes from loving others; this was a book where very little happens.

Unlike his other works, Dickens colorful, memorable, and silly character names heard out loud kept distracting me to the point that I'd be singing over some dialogue with parody songs. Maybe I would have been more attentive if there was more going on in this plodding novel. But I really don't want to visit these characters again to find out. Maybe some of the movie versions, but not the source material.

It hurts me and makes me feel embarrassed that I didn't like a novel that's considered a masterpiece to many others. Especially since it's by such a brilliant writer and Dicken's personal favorite.

I will revisit his other masterpieces over the years, but not this one.

[Nemezida · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frankly speaking, I’ve never been a big fan of the famous Victorian writer C.Dickens, so I‘ve not read some of his books. It's time to fix this! And I decided to do it in English.

So, the first turn went to the book "David Copperfield", the most beloved and a bit autobiographical novel by Charles Dickens.

Dickens himself had a difficult, unhappy childhood, and young David’s life is not at all easy. His father died before he was born, and when he is eight, his mother marries again. Her new husband, Mr.Murdstone, is stern and cruel, and so is his disagreeable sister, the stony-faced Miss Murdstone.

As he grows up, David meets many unpleasant people – cruel schoolmasters, wicked friends… He learns that life is full of troubles and misery and cruelty. But he also finds laughter and kindness, trust and friendship… and love. ;)

I liked the book. It is full of hope for a better future, faith in the victory of good deeds over evil, the triumph of worthy people. It’s really nice to read it, even the mood raises.

[Mitch · Rating 2 out of 5]

Leider habe ich das Buch nach etwa 600 Seiten abgebrochen. Der Anfang war vielversprechend, die Kindheit des Helden war sehr eindrücklich, und die Sprache des Schriftstellers ist natürlich gewaltig. Der Mittelteil hat sich sehr gezogen. Der Schriftsteller verliert sich in der Länge. Sein Held kann dann die Schwäche des Romans für mich persönlich nicht mehr auffangen, es gibt einfach auch zu wenige Wendungen, die einem über die Längen helfen. Sehr schade. Ich hoffe, dass das Buch „Große Erwartungen“ von Charles Dickens besser wird.

[Tazar Oo · Rating 3 out of 5]

ဒရာမာေလးေတြ ျပန္ဖတ္ေတာ့လည္း... မတရားတာကို ရြံ႕မုန္းတဲ့စိတ္၊ အမွန္တရားဘက္က ရပ္တည္လိုတဲ့စိတ္... ဒါေတြျပန္ေပၚလာတယ္။ စာေပက စာရိတၱကို ျပဳျပင္ေနျပန္ၿပီ...။ ဒီလိုျပဳျပင္နည္းဟာ အရမ္းသိမ္ေမြ႕တယ္။ မင္းမတရားတာမလုပ္နဲ႔လို႔... ဘယ္လိုပဲ တိုက္ရိုက္ဆံုးမဆံုးမ... နားလည္လက္ခံႏိုင္ဖို႔ခက္လိမ့္မယ္..။ က်င့္သံုးဖို႔ဆို ပိုလို႔ေတာင္ခက္ဦးမယ္...။ စာဖတ္နည္းသြားလို႔ ခုေခတ္လူငယ္ေတြ ၾကမ္းေထာ္ေထာ္ႀကီးေတြျဖစ္ေနတာလားလို႔ပဲ ဆရာႀကီးေတြဆံုးမတဲ့စကား ျပန္ၾကားေယာင္မိတယ္...။

[María · Rating 3 out of 5]

Para aquellos que quieran probar a leer alguna historia en inglés no muy extensa, este libro lo recomiendo bastante.

La gramática y el vocabulario no es demasiado complicado y se lee rápidamente debido a que las acciones transcurren muy seguidas.

Este libro ha sido una lectura que he tenido que realizar para clase y quizá sea de las mejores que he leído tanto por la historia, como por lo ameno que se me ha hecho al leerlo.

[Hrisi]

(read for school, would not rate it)

David Copperfield is Dicken's (kind of) autobiographical novel and the narrator is the pessimist with a bad childhood David Copperfield. The book talks about his life from before he was born to his happily-ever-after.

To be honest I found a much deeper connection between Copperfield and Steerforth than between him and Dora The Exlorer. Their romance was just so superficial and everything happened so fast. Did not like it.

The retelling was good though.

[Paul Servini · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an English teacher I'm always on the lookout for good books to encourage my students to read English. This pack which enables them to read and listen at the same time, is very good. The reading is clear and comprehensible. And, of course, the story, which I've read many times, is a classic. Highly recommended.

[Iwona Osowska · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd rather read the whole book as it was written by Dickens so that I could compare those two, but what I disliked was words repetition. Also, which is rather criticism of Dickens, I did not appreciate remarks about Uriah being ugly, as if that in itself meant he's evil. Other than that the story was interesting but nothing significantly appealing for me.

[Jodi · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a book group selection, and since I'm not a fan of old classics, I found this abridged version to read instead. It was actually abridged by Dickens himself for public readings. However, even this shortened version couldn't seem to hold my attention.

[Jonny Mullan · Rating 2 out of 5]

My only real comparison is that it felt like reading the SparkNotes version instead. At least I know the plot, but there was very little... to put it bluntly... story. I know it's very difficult to fit 640 pages into 64 and it did what it said on the tin... or dust jacket.