Product Description

`I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And his name is DAVID COPPERFIELD,' wrote Dickens of what is the most personal, certainly one of the most popular, of all his novels. Dickens wrote the book after the completion of a fragment of autobiography recalling his employment as a child in a London warehouse, and in the first-person narrative, a new departure for him, realized marvellously the workings of memory. The embodiment of his boyhood experience in the novel involved a `complicated interweaving of truth and fiction', at its most subtle in the portrait of his father as Mr Micawber, one of Dickens's greatest comic creations. Enjoying a humour that never becomes caricature, the reader shares David's affection for the eccentric Betsey Trotwood and her protégé Mr Dick, and smiles with the narrator at the trials he endures in his love for the delightfully silly Dora. Settings, (East Anglia, the London of the 1820s), people, and events are unified by their relationship to the story of Steerforth's treachery, which reaches its powerful climax in the storm scene. This edition, which has the accurate Clarendon text, includes Dickens's trial titles and working notes, and eight of the original illustrations by `Phiz'.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #489824 in Books
• Published on: 1999-02-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 944 pages

Review
Introduction and notes by Andrew Sanders facilitated a proper understanding of period details and plot structure. I will continue to use this edition in future classes on Dickens's novels. (Helge Nowak, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universtitaet )

Customer Reviews

MAGNIFICENT NOVEL
This book is amazing and touching. Normally I would not attempt to read such a big book but I felt like a challenging read and I can not put it down. It is the story of David's life and I would recommend it to anybody since it is the only novel that has ever brought a tear to my eye. For me, this is not a book that I can read and return to a library, I need a copy of the magic within. The language may be difficult to understand at first but if you are patient, you will get the hang of it and it will be many times more rewarding. When reading a book, I like to read the story and come to the end of the book so that I know how it ends but with David Copperfield, of course I want to come to the end, but I also want to make the book last. I have been reading it for a month now and I still have 1/4 of the book to read. Because it is taking to long, it feels to me as though I am following David slowly through his life and I believe that is how this novel should be read.

Excellent
This CD is an absolute must for long car journeys, over five hours of superb narration by Anton Lesser brings the characters to life and draws you into young David Copperfield's world so well that you may be tempted to fill up the car with petrol and drive repeatedly around the M25 over the weekend just to hear it again.

Easily in my top five books of all time
Possibly in my top three.

I'm a reasonable Dickens fan but this stands head and shoulders above his other works, in my opinion. If you're used to modern fiction, you'll definitely take a little time to adjust to the writing style but once you're in you'll be a hooked.

That said, I still find it the most accessible, enjoyable and frankly emotional of all Dickens' books. Genuinely funny, moving and inspiring - it's got to be a five star, two thumbs up full on recommendation.

The fact that you can get it for under two quid makes it one of the literary bargains of all time.