The Personal History of David Copperfield
1850
The Personal History of David Copperfield
1850
The novel Dickens called his "favourite child" is both his most autobiographical and his most deeply felt. Born under a cloud of superstition, young David Copperfield suffers a childhood of genuine darkness: his father dies before his birth, his mother marries the cruel Mr. Murdstone, and the boy is sent to work in a London warehouse before finding refuge with his extraordinary great-aunt, Betsey Trotwood. What follows is a journey from poverty and vulnerability to vocation, as David discovers his calling as a writer amid a cast of characters so vivid they feel less like inventions than living memories: the ever-hopeful Micawber family drowning in debt, the menacingly humble Uriah Heep, the doomed Steerforth, and the two women who shape David's heart. This is Dickens at his most personal, mining his own childhood in the blacking factory for material that becomes transcendent. The novel moves from tragedy to comedy and back again, but its ultimate register is one of hard-won resilience. It endures because anyone who has ever felt alone, overlooked, or underestimated will recognize themselves in David's long struggle to become who he was meant to be.
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“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.””
— Charles Dickens
“My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest.””
— Charles Dickens
“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.””
— Charles Dickens
“My advice is, never do to-morrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time. Collar him!””
— Charles Dickens
“Never," said my aunt, "be mean in anything; never be false; never be cruel. Avoid those three vices, Trot, and I can always be hopeful of you.””
— Charles Dickens
“There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose.””
— Charles Dickens
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six , result happiness.Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery””
— Charles Dickens
“Trifles make the sum of life. ””
— Charles Dickens
“I never could have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one object at a time.””
— Charles Dickens
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Dickens, Charles. The Personal History of David Copperfield. Lex, lex-books.com/book/the-personal-history-of-david-copperfield-92124744-af08-47ca-9463-a1b32eefce6e.Dickens, C. (1850). The Personal History of David Copperfield. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-personal-history-of-david-copperfield-92124744-af08-47ca-9463-a1b32eefce6eDickens, Charles. The Personal History of David Copperfield. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-personal-history-of-david-copperfield-92124744-af08-47ca-9463-a1b32eefce6e.
