David Copperfield

Charles Dickens called his novel David Copperfield, his “favorite child,” and wiser than most parents or authors in his choice of a favorite; always in favor of the most prolonged effort, David Copperfield came to him quickly. «The story bore him irresistibly along, and he was probably never less harassed by interruptions and breaks in his narrative,» says Mr. Forster. Yet Dickens made the book his favorite, agreeing, probably, with the majority of his admirers. If we had to lose all Dickens’s novels but one, the choice would be hard between Copperfield and Pickwick. But Pickwick would be probably a second choice. 

Dickens’s reminiscences of a neglected childhood awoke in the memory, and this is all he made immortal in David Copperfield with the most tender pity and humor. Dickens was studying Copperfield at the close of 1848. And the novel is so excellent that criticism is swallowed up in pleasure. Dickens was a man with a strong memory of his childhood. This memory seems to be a privilege for an artist, or rather a constituent part of his inspiration. In George Sand’s autobiography, for example, her childhood remains to her as vivid a series of pictures. The child of genius is a voyant, its spirit fades into the light of ordinary day, for the majority of humanity, but in the intellect of Dickens, George Sand, Scott, and Wordsworth, it does not fade. The artists never lose “the gleam,” and to them, the bright visions of their infancy are always present. The majority of the people abandoned the gleam of childhood, but they who keep it, like Dickens, delight the world.

About the Editor
Further Reading
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Biographical Note
Criticisms and Interpretation
I. BY ANDREW LANG
II. BY JOHN FORSTER
III. BY ADOLPHUS WILLIAM WARD
IV. BY GILBERT K. CHESTERTON
V. BY W. TEIGNMOUTH SHORE
VI. BY GEORGE GISSING
LIST OF CHARACTERS
Preface to the First Edition
Preface to the ‘Charles Dickens’ Edition
DAVID COPPERFIELD
CHAPTER 1 - I AM BORN
CHAPTER 2 - I OBSERVE
CHAPTER 3 - I HAVE A CHANGE
CHAPTER 4 - I FALL INTO DISGRACE
CHAPTER 5 - I AM SENT AWAY FROM HOME
CHAPTER 6 - ENLARGE MY CIRCLE OF ACQUAINTANCE
CHAPTER 7 - MY ‘FIRST HALF’ AT SALEM HOUSE
CHAPTER 8 - MY HOLYDAYS. ESPECIALLY ONE HAPPY AFTERNOON
CHAPTER 9 - I HAVE A MEMORABLE BIRTHDAY
CHAPTER 10 - I BECOME NEGLECTED, AND AM PROVIDED FOR
CHAPTER 11 - I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON’T LIKE IT
CHAPTER 12 - LIKING LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT NO BETTER, I FORM A GREAT RESOLUTION
CHAPTER 13 - THE SEQUEL OF MY RESOLUTION
CHAPTER 14 - MY AUNT MAKES UP HER MIND ABOUT ME
CHAPTER 15 - I MAKE ANOTHER BEGINNING
CHAPTER 16 - I AM A NEW BOY IN MORE SENSES THAN ONE
CHAPTER 17 - SOMEBODY TURNS UP
CHAPTER 18 - A RETROSPECT
CHAPTER 19 - I LOOK ABOUT ME? AND MAKE A DISCOVERY
CHAPTER 20 - STEERFORTH4S HOME
CHAPTER 21 - LITTLE EM’LY
CHAPTER 22 - SOME OLD SCENES, AND SOME NEW PEOPLE
CHAPTER 23 - I CORROBORATE MR. DICK AND CHOOSE A PROFESSION
CHAPTER 24 - MY FIRST DISSIPATION
CHAPTER 25 - GOOD AND BAD ANGELS
CHAPTER 26 - I FALL INTO CAPTIVITY
CHAPTER 27 - TOMMY TRADDLES
CHAPTER 28 - MR MICAWBER’S GAUNTLET
CHAPTER 29 - I VISIT STEERFORTH AT HIS HOME, AGAIN
CHAPTER 30 - A LOSS
CHAPTER 31 - A GREATER LOSS
CHAPTER 32 - THE BEGINNING OF A LONG JOURNEY
CHAPTER 33 - BLISSFUL
CHAPTER 34 - MY AUNT ASTONISHES ME
CHAPTER 35 - DEPRESSION
CHAPTER 36 - ENTHUSIASM
CHAPTER 37 - A LITTLE COLD WATER
CHAPTER 38 - A DISSOLUTION OF PARTNERSHIP
CHAPTER 39 - WICKFIELD AND HEEP
CHAPTER 40 - THE WANDERER
CHAPTER 41 - DORA’S AUNTS
CHAPTER 42 - MISCHIEF
CHAPTER 43 - ANOTHER RETROSPECT
CHAPTER 44 - OUR HOUSEKEEPING
CHAPTER 45 - MR DICK FULFILS MY AUNT’S PREDICTIONS
CHAPTER 46 - INTELLIGENCE
CHAPTER 47 - MARTHA
CHAPTER 48 - DOMESTIC
CHAPTER 49 - I AM INVOLVED IN MYSTERY
CHAPTER 50 - MR PEGGOTTY’S DREAM COMES TRUE
CHAPTER 51 - THE BEGINNING OF A LONGER JOURNEY
CHAPTER 52 - I ASSIST AT AN EXPLOSION
CHAPTER 53 - ANOTHER RETROSPECT
CHAPTER 54 - MR MICAWBER’S TRANSACTIONS
CHAPTER 55 - TEMPEST
CHAPTER 56 - THE NEW WOUND, AND THE OLD
CHAPTER 57 - THE EMIGRANTS
CHAPTER 58 - ABSENCE
CHAPTER 59 - RETURN
CHAPTER 60 - AGNES
CHAPTER 61 - I AM SHOWN TWO INTERESTING PENITENTS
CHAPTER 62 - A LIGHT SHINES ON MY WAY
CHAPTER 63 - A VISITOR
CHAPTER 64 - A LAST RETROSPECT
Extract from Character Scketches from Dickens
Introduction by Kate Perugini
Foreword by B. W. Matz
Five Illustrations by Harold Copping