Revised edition with an introduction and notes by Jeremy Tambling.
Penguin Classics give you the best possible editions of Charles Dickens's novels,
including all the original illustrations, useful and informative introductions, the
definitive, accurate text as it was meant to be published, a chronology of Dickens's life
and notes that fill in the background to the book.
David Copperfield is the novel Dickens regarded as his 'favourite child' and is
considered his most autobiographical. As David recounts his experience from childhood to the
discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist, Dickens draws openly and revealingly on
his own life. Among the gloriously vivid cast of characters are David's tyrannical
stepfather, Mr Murdstone; his brilliant, but ultimately unworthy, school-friend Steerforth;
his formidable aunt, Betsey Trotwood; the eternally humble, yet treacherous Uriah Heep;
frivolous, enchanting Dora; and the magnificently impecunious Micawber, one of literature's
great comic creations.
This edition uses the re-edited text of the first volume publication of 1850, and
includes updated suggestions for further reading, a revised chronology and expanded notes.
In his new introduction, Jeremy Tambling discusses the novel’s autobiographical elements,
and its central themes of memory and identity.
