David Copperfield Paperback – January 14, 2018

Since the most recent Kindle update a few months ago, this book will no longer open on my kindle. I need to return it and get a refund!

Its a classic and was free!!!Read on the beach and at home.

Watched the movie on TV so I thought I would try the book but I just didn’t have what it takes to make it to the end. I know this is great literature and I know not completing it is my loss, so sorry.

I recently re-read Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, and was considering picking up another of his novels. When I saw that a new production of Dickens' semi-autobiographical 1850 novel David Copperfield had just been released narrated by Ralph Cosham, one of my favorite audiobook readers, I eagerly queued the novel up.David Copperfield chronicles the life, from birth to mid-life, of the title character, and is told in first person from Copperfield's point of view. Many elements of Copperfield's life parallel Dickens' own. Child labor, debtors prisons, and endeavors in law, journalism, and writing all have their origins in Dickens' own experience. Other than optimism, Copperfield is largely shaped by the circumstances he finds himself in and the characters he encounters.Dickens does a great job of providing fully-formed secondary characters. Attention is paid to the personality and motivation of virtually everyone Copperfield meets, down to waiters, landlords, and coachmen. My three favorite characters in the novel are Mr. Micawber, Betsey Trotwood, and Uriah Heep. Copperfield lives for a time with Mr. Micawber as a boy, and the pair form a strong connection. Mr. Micawber is characterized by pecuniary difficulties, a taste for the verbose, and faith that something will, in short, turn up. He's amusing whenever he turns up. David's great-aunt Betsey Trotwood is a feisty, strong-willed, no-nonsense woman who is, in fact, quite caring towards those who earn her good graces. Uriah Heep is a despicable clerk, who hides his schemes and ambitions in a cloak of humbleness and subservience. My skin crawled whenever he appeared on scene. In addition to memorable characters, Dickens' crafts some fantastic language in this novel. The dialogue, in particular, is quite good, and many a line will stick with me.The main downside to the story is that there's no central thread to the narrative. While the novel is largely a coming of age story like Dickens' Great Expectation, it lacks any particular goal. Pip strives to become a gentleman and earn Estella's love in Great Expectations, but there's no similar target in Copperfield's mind. He moves from challenge to challenge well enough, but never seems to have any particular direction of his own. While this, most probably, is closer to real life than Pip's goals, it makes for a somewhat meandering novel.I listened to Blackstone Audio's 2012 production of David Copperfield, narrated by Ralph Cosham. Cosham is a favorite narrator of mine, and he does an excellent job here. The novel contains a very large cast of characters, and Cosham manages to make them all sound distinct and memorable. From the despicably conniving and humble Uriah Heep to the solid and seafaring Mr. Peggotty to the adorable and silly Dora, you know as soon as Cosham starts speaking which character you're listening to. Cosham also does a great job of using timing and volume to set a scene. The hands down best example of this is a scene towards the end of the novel featuring Mr. Micawber and Uriah Heep, which is one of my favorite scenes of the novel, in no small part because of Cosham's performance. The unabridged recording runs approximately 34 hours.Dickens' David Copperfield is an excellent novel. The lack of central theme holds it back some, but the many interesting and amusing characters and the memorable dialogue makes it worth reading for anyone looking to give Dickens a go. I highly recommend Cosham's performance of the novel to audiobook fans.Note: I received a complimentary review copy of this audiobook from the publisher.

Everyone knows the basic premise of this novel—David Copperfield is orphaned at the age of 8; he is mistreated by his stepfather and aunt, forced to live on the streets and work in inhumane conditions. I first tried to read it in the 7th grade, but made it no farther than the 3rd chapter. It was slow, and much of the dialog was nearly impenetrable.Now, at age 41, I have a much different perspective. Yes, it is still slow—there is no getting around that—but it is also layered in ways I could not have understood back then. Dickens excels in peopling Copperfield’s world with a cast of eccentric, nuanced minor characters that come and go throughout his life, giving it a lived-in feeling and the sense of a full-textured reality.Had I read this in 1850, I might have said “I know people just like that!”, but not today. It is clear British people thought and behaved much differently 167 years ago, but Dickens excels at emphasizing the common humanity of his characters. He weaves of tapestry that is like life: often funny, sometimes tragic, occasionally banal, with the odd occasional glimpse of heroism.The early section of David Copperfield’s childhood is the highlight of the book. It is impossible not to burn with anger against the horrible Murdstones or the harsh schoolmaster Creakle. It is easy to feel kinship with lovelorn Mr. Barkis, or laugh sympathetically at the habitual overspending Macawbers, or wonder whether the inscrutable Uriah Heep can ever be trusted. I felt like cheering when Aunt Betsey made her decision to finally rescue David and give him a home.Throughout the novel, Dickens cleverly presents situations that feel organic but serve to highlight social issues of Victorian England—gender inequality, debtor’s prisons, children in the workforce, public shaming of women with “low morals”, the presumptuousness of the gentry class, and the schemes of the poor to achieve upward mobility inside a rigid social structure.On the whole, Dickens seems to have been ahead of his time in championing basic human rights regardless of social class. However, there is one jarring satirical chapter in which Copperfield suggests prisoners should be overworked like horses, so they die sooner, so that the money for their care and feeding can instead be spent on the poor and sick.Once David reaches adulthood, there are several chapters devoted to skewering Doctor’s Commons, a sort of pseudo-legal profession in Dickens’ time that was eventually disbanded about a decade after the book’s publication. (This was my least favorite part of the story, by the way.)There are also several plot lines juxtaposing the romantic ideal of love versus the various reasons people married—to secure financial stability, to enhance one’s reputation, or to maintain a distinguished family name in the face of declining income caused by mass industrialization.Highly recommended. This book requires some patience and perseverance; the richness of the characters makes it worth the effort.

A little wordy but loved the story of love and loss. I have endeavored to read more classics in my retirement and so I begin

When the hero of this story David Copperfield is born, his formidable Great Aunt Betsey Trotwood (angered by the unpalatable news that the baby is a male and not the female she confidently expected) leaves David’s widowed mother’s house in a fit of temper and, vowing never to return, she vanishes “like a discontented fairy.” Several years later, when David’s mother has died and David has been ill-treated by his cruel stepfather, he runs away and after several days on the road he arrives at his Aunt Betsey’s cottage in Dover, where the eccentric elderly lady lives with her companion, the even more eccentric but very lovable Mr Dick. And it is when Aunt Betsey decides to take the young David under her wing, that Master Copperfield’s life changes very much for the better. After receiving a decent education, paid for by his aunt, and having spent time in the holidays with the seafaring family of his old nurse, Peggotty, David introduces an old schoolfriend of his, the very handsome and financially independent Steerforth, to Peggotty’s beautiful niece, Emily - an event which has startling repercussions for all involved. In the meantime, David comes into the orbit of the odious and falsely subservient (and “ever so ‘umble”) Uriah Heep, who has nefarious plans to worm his way into the life of David’s lawyer friend, Mr Wickfield, and Mr Wickfield’s kind and beautiful daughter, Agnes; there is the lovely Tommy Traddles - a true friend to David; then there is the feckless, financially straitened (but marvellous) Mr Micawber, who cannot live by his own maxim of: "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery”; and our young hero becomes part of a whole cast of eccentric, unusual and wonderfully weird characters, all of whom add greatly to this entertaining story of a young man’s adventures as he travels from childhood to adulthood.Charles Dickens’ favourite of his novels (and one that is believed to be, at least in part, a thinly veiled autobiography of its author) this is a very engaging and entertaining story which I first read at school and which, although I have been meaning to revisit it many times since, has actually taken me decades to get around to it. However, now I have done so, I am very glad that I took the time out to reread this novel, and although I have to admit to finding some of Dickens’ writing to be overly dramatic and overly sentimental, it’s also true that he is a great storyteller who creates some wonderfully comical characters for his stories. Like the author’s ‘Great Expectations’ this is a marvellous coming-of-age story and one which amongst all the humour also looks at injustice, inequality, social status and more. Finally I will just add that for this rereading I chose the Vintage Classics edition with French flaps, decorated endpapers and sprayed page edges - not only is this edition attractive to look at and to hold but the pages are of a larger size than most paperbacks and the print is of a decent size too - which is not always the case with some of these reprinted classics. Recommended.4 Stars.

This has only got four stars as I have only just started reading this book. The title to this review is in correlation to the fact that I should of read this book, long before now. I always like to read a broad style of books, all fiction, accept for non fiction. I just can not get into some the history that i love to watch, but struggle to find interesting on paper. Anyhow, Dickens way with words and creating a colourful picture of his characters is a delite in this book. Like I said, I'm not beyond chapter 4 and I want to read it all in one night. Unfortunately my illness doesn't allow for such ventures anymore and I often find the book slumped on my chest or on the floor. But I will persevere, as this is a book that shouldn't be left on a shelf untouched. This will not be the last Dickens book I'll read.

This is quite an interesting read that follows David Copperfield as he makes his way through life, dealing with the loss of family, being moved from here to there and trying to make his own decisions while trying to figure out who he is and what he wants. Of course the writing is descriptive and easy to follow but Copperfield is a surprisingly annoying character worrying only about himself and doing whatever he pleases. Even when he's supposedly grown up, he's still not a particularly great person but he does learn a few lessons. I do wonder how true it is that this is loosely based on Dickens own life...

Five stars? Absolutely. However you don’t need to take my word for it, hundreds of others reviewers feel the same. Yes it can be a mammoth read and yes there are sections that ponder along and appear not wholly connected to the main events, but this is missing the point. Dickens’s David Copperfield is one of the greats of English literature. The BBC made a very worthy mini-series some years ago and it captured the essence, but the original work gives so much more.The characters are such a reflection of our own times, Mr Peggotty, Ham, Clara Peggoty & aunt Betsey find their opposites in Dippy Dora (high maintenance), her father (the shrewd financial businessman who always defers to his partner) and the ‘murderous’ Mudstones’ who eventually get their comeuppance of sorts, as well as the despicable Uriah Heep. But for me the icing on the cake is Mr Micawber with his love of language and financial wisdom.Income, nineteen shillings and sixpence. Expenditure, nineteen shillings. Result, happiness. Income, nineteen shillings and sixpence. Expenditure, twenty shillings. Result, misery.Outstanding!

I have read this book over and over. It is sad in parts, but there are good parts which I like the best. It's a story of a young lad who had a loving mother who was imposed on through marriage for her small fortune of money left to her by her first husband, who had died. This new husband abused her and her son emotionally. She dies. Her son David Copperfield is pushed into work being paid pittence at his step father's business. Two good characters turn up who support him until they couldn't. Young David remembers his Aunt Miss Betsy Trotwood. He runs away to her. His life changes for the better. I fully recommend this book as an enjoyable read with a lovely ending.