David Copperfield

by Clare West (Retold by), Charles Dickens

Please, Mr Murdstone! Don't beat me! I've tried to learn my lessons, really I have, sir!' sobs David. Although he is only eight years old, Mr Murdstone does beat him, and David is so frightened that he bites his cruel stepfather's hand. For that, he is kept locked in his room for five days and nights, and nobody is allowed to speak to him. As David grows up, he learns that life is full of trouble and misery and cruelty. But he also finds laughter and kindness, trust and friendship... and love.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Literature, Romance, Novels

112 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2009

About the author

Clare West has over twenty years of TEFL classroom experience in the UK and abroad, and has led teacher workshops in Europe and South America. Associated with Cambridge examination courses, she became a freelance author, contributing to Oxford Bookworms and Dominoes and serving as Series Editor for Oxford Bookworms Playscripts.

Reviews

[Shaimaa شيماء]

اعتقد أن رواية ديفيد كوبرفيلد من اكتر روايات تشارلز ديكنز تعقيدا.. احداث كتير وشخصيات ومواضيع متشابكة ومشاعر مختلفة، حب وكره واعجاب وانتقام..

شخصية بيجوتي الخادمة الطيبة وعيلتها اللي حصلتلهم احداث رهيبة..
اجنس العاقلة الرزينة اللي بتحب واحد بيعتبرها أخته ومع ذلك دايما واقفة جنبه وبتنصحه.
دورا البنت الهشة الضعيفة..
العمة اللي تبان قوية ومتسلطة بس قلبها طيب جدا..
كل دول أثروا في حياة البطل بشكل ما وساهموا إنه يبقى الكاتب المعروف..

النسخة دي مختصرة وأكيد النسخة الأصلية فيها ابعاد اكتر من كده، أتمنى أقرأها في يوم من الأيام..

[Steven Fox]

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]

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]

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

[Alberto Gutiérrez]

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

[Heather]

I couldn't get past all of the red flags about David's stepfather early in the book.

[Elena]

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

[Aleksandra]

Pan od angielskiego mi dał, taka nijaka na jeden wieczór

[Martha]

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.

[Abdalrahman Marshoud]

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

[J.K.]

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

[Gabriel Branco]

It’s my fault for not noticing it was an abridgement until after I bought it, but I really did not like how rushed everything was. I finished the book completely indifferent to all the characters, which I want to believe would not be the case if I had read the unabridged version. Then again, I am not sure if this would have been the novel for me even in its full format, and maybe the abridgement is the only reason why I actually read the whole thing, so I’ll call the second star the benefit of the doubt.

[Beth]

"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

[Carolyn]

I enjoyed this book so much that I marked my calendar to re-read it in a year.

[Derryck Osbourne]

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]

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.

[Jannicke Myre]

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

[Ben Jeapes]

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.

[Jill Summers gray]

I can't believe I got to my 50s without reading this, so I decided it was high time I did. I forgot how easy Dickens is to read. He has a wonderful turn of
of phrase. Laugh out loud moments, tears in the eyes moments. Loved it. You know it's a good book when you fall in love with the main character. Now I'm off to watch the film and read Demon Copperhead.

[Toby Sutton-Long]

I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that I didn't realise that this is an abridged version until I was halfway through reading it (it was a gift from a friend), and I was surprised at how short it was! Anyway, I really enjoyed this, I struggled to put it down, and now I really hope to read the "full" edition soon.

[Sandra Van]

Opvallend dat dit boek over het opgroeien van David Copperfield in de 19e eeuw vanuit het perspectief van het kind, jongere en later man is geschreven. Scherp observatievermogen en een goed moreel kompas vallen op. Schrijnend hoe toen regelmatig met kinderen werd omgegaan.
Leest prettig en is goed geschreven.

[Chlo]

I only gave this 2 because of the pacing. So much details were left out it felt incomplete and rushed. I only discovered that it is supposed to be longer once I was halfway done. Will definitely be reading the unabridged version.

[Στεφη Λουλη]

*3,5/5

[anda lucía]

si he tenido que tragarme esto para mi examen de mañana puedo ponerlo aquí me da igual

[Mary Ellen Barringer]

I can understand why David Copperfield was written as a serial. For me, the language dragged and I thought there was a lot of repetition. . I'm glad that I read it.

[Mark]

This will always be my favorite work of Dickens.

[Jessica Roberts]

It's an interesting story, just terribly long.

[Darlene]

A bittersweet book

[Ghaidamo_]

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]

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.