The personal history, adventures, experience & observation of David Copperfield, the younger of Blunderstone Rookery : which he never meant to be published on any account

Hugely admired by Tolstoy, David Copperfield is the novel that draws most closely from Charles Dickens's own life. Its eponymous hero, orphaned as a boy, grows up to discover love and happiness, heartbreak and sorrow amid a cast of eccentrics, innocents, and villains. Praising Dickens's power of invention, Somerset Maugham wrote: "There were never such people as the Micawbers, Peggotty and Barkis, Traddles, Betsey Trotwood and Mr. Dick, Uriah Heep and his mother. They are fantastic inventions of Dickens's exultant imagination...you can never quite forget them."This Modern Library Paperback Classics edition includes a new Introduction by Pulitzer Prize finalist David Gates, in addition to new explanatory notes. #160;#160;#160;#160;#160;#160;#160;#160; quot;#160;#160;#160;#160;#160;#160;#160;#160;Like so many fond parents I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child,quot; wrote Charles Dickens. quot;And his name is David Copperfield.quot; #160;#160;#160;#160;#160;#160;#160;#160;Of all of Dickens's novels, David Copperfield most closely reflects the events of his own life. The story of an abandoned waif who discovers life and love in an indifferent world, this classic tale of childhood is populated with a cast of eccentrics, innocents, and villains who number among the author's greatest creations. #160;#160;#160;#160;#160;#160;#160;#160;quot;David Copperfield is filled with characters of the most astonishing variety, vividness, and originality,quot; noted Somerset Maugham. quot;They are not realistic and yet they abound with life. There never were such people as the Micawbers, Pegotty and Barkis, Traddles, Betsey Trotwood and Mr. Dick, Uriah Heep and his mother. They are fantastic inventions of Dickens's exultant imagination, but they have so much vigor, they are so consistent, they are presented with so much conviction, that you believe in them. They are extravagant, but not unreal, and when you have once to know them you can never quite forget them.quot; T. S. Eliot agreed: quot;Dickens excelled in character; in the creation of characters of greater intensity than human beings.quot; And Virginia Woolf concluded: quot;In David Copperfield, though char- acters swarm and life flows into every creek and cranny, some common feelings--youth, gaiety, hope--envelops the tumult, brings the scattered parts together, and invests the most perfect of all the Dickens novels with an atmosphere of beauty.quot; The Modern Library has played a significant role in American cultural life for the better part of a century. The series was founded in 1917 by the publishers Boni and Liveright and eight years later acquired by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer. It provided the foun- dation for their next publishing venture, Random House. The Modern Library has been a staple of the American book trade, providing readers with affordable hardbound editions of important works of literature and thought. For the Modern Library's seventy-fifth anniversary, Random House redesigned the series, restoring as its emblem the running torchbearer created by Lucian Bernhard in 1925 and refurbishing jackets, bindings, and type, as well as inaugurating a new program of selecting titles. The Modern Library continues to provide the world's best books, at the best prices It adds to the charm of this book to remember that it is virtually a picture of the author's own boyhood. It is an excellent picture of the life of a struggling English youth in the middle of the last century. The pictures of Canterbury and London are true pictures and through these pages walk one of Dickens' wonderful processions of characters, quaint and humorous, villainous and tragic. Nobody cares for Dickens heroines, least of all for Dora, but take it all in al, l this book is enjoyed by young people more than any other of the great novelist. After having read this you will wish to read Nicholas Nickleby for its mingling of pathos and humor, Martin Chuzzlewit for its pictures of American life as seen through English eyes, and Pickwick Papers for its crude but boisterous humor. SUMMARY: This famous tale tells the story of a young boy's escape from an unhappy childhood into the adventures of adult life. Follow his dramatic journey as he encounters a cast of unforgettable characters: cruel Mr. Murdstone, formidable Aunt Betsey and worm-l The quintessential novel from England's most beloved novelist, David Copperfield is the story of a young man's adventures on his journey from an unhappy and impoverished childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful author David Copperfield suffers from his abusive stepfather and the betrayal of the scheming Uriah Heep, finds a new life with his formidable aunt, and falls in love with Dora, as he fights to escape his impoverished and unhappy childhood A Young Boy Endures Hardships As A Child Laborer In This Partly Autobiographical Classic Reflecting Social Conditions In Nineteenth-century England. The autobiographical novel whose hero, an orphan boy in nineteenth-century England, successfully overcomes an unhappy childhood