Resumen
Resumen de David Copperfield
Para quién es
For readers who love character-filled stories about growing up, and anyone curious about Victorian life, work and class. Its humour, warmth and memorable friendships will appeal to readers drawn to stories of love and learning to judge wisely.
De qué trata este libro
David Copperfield is a novel by Charles Dickens, first printed in monthly parts in 1849 and 1850 and then as a single book. It tells the life of one man, from his birth in a quiet English village to his early manhood and beyond. The man himself tells it, looking back across the years, and he begins by wondering whether he will prove to be the hero of his own life.
Dickens wrote it after years of crowded, fast work, and he drew on his own past more openly than ever before. As a boy he had been sent to work in a London warehouse while his father sat in debtors' prison. He kept that time secret from most people, yet its shape and its shame run through this book. Many readers see the novel as the place where Dickens made fiction out of his own memory.
What do you get from it? You get a warm, funny and sometimes painful tale of growing up. You meet cruel stepfathers, loyal servants, a fierce aunt, a hopeful debtor, a smiling schemer and a charming friend who is not what he seems. You also watch a boy learn to work, to love and to judge himself honestly. Let us start with where David's life begins.
En este resumen
- 1A boy is born into a house of womenFree
- 2A stepfather brings fear into the home
- 3School brings both a tyrant and a friend
- 4A child alone in London learns to work
- 5A long walk leads to a new home
- 6Young manhood brings work, love and folly
- 7The book asks what a good heart needs
- 8Money, class and work shape every life
- 9A life told by memory, humour and design
Idea clave 1 de 9
A boy is born into a house of women
The story opens at Blunderstone in Suffolk. David is born six months after the death of his father, so he never knows him. His young mother, Clara, is gentle, pretty and a little helpless. She is looked after by the housemaid Clara Peggotty, who is always called Peggotty, and she lives in dread of a visit from her husband's formidable aunt.
That aunt is Betsey Trotwood, and she arrives on the very afternoon of the birth. She has made up her mind that the baby will be a girl, whom she plans to bring up wisely and keep free of mistakes in love. When she learns the child is a boy, she leaves in a sort of cold fury and does not come back for years. It is one of the best comic scenes in the book, and it plants a thread that will matter much later.
The early chapters are filled with the way a small child sees the world. David remembers the church, the kitchen, the crocodile book and the warm closeness of Peggotty, who loves him without condition. Dickens writes these memories with a mixture of humour and tenderness. The house is small, but to a child it is a whole kingdom, and the reader feels how safe it is.
That safety is fragile, and the reader senses it. Clara is kind but weak, and she depends on others to tell her what to do. Peggotty is strong but only a servant, with no power to protect the boy against any real threat. Dickens uses this early calm so that its loss will hurt more.
The first key point is simple. A child's happiness often rests on a few people and a few rooms, and those can be taken away. David's first years show what he has before he loses it, and the rest of the book can be read as his long effort to build something steady again. Soon a dark-browed gentleman begins to call on his mother, and the boy notices.
Peggotty takes David on a holiday to her family in Yarmouth. When he comes home, everything has changed. This sets the stage for the next turn, and it is a hard one.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Who’s who
- David Copperfield
- David is an imaginative, affectionate boy who narrates his life and struggles to understand the people around him.
- Clara Peggotty
- Clara Peggotty is David's devoted household servant and nurse, offering affection and practical protection.
- Betsey Trotwood
- Betsey Trotwood is David's formidable great aunt, whose blunt manner conceals generosity and concern for him.
- Edward Murdstone
- Edward Murdstone is David's stern stepfather, who imposes harsh discipline on David and his gentle mother.
- James Steerforth
- James Steerforth is a wealthy, charismatic older schoolboy whom David admires and trusts.
- Wilkins Micawber
- Wilkins Micawber is David's kindly London landlord, whose financial troubles cannot extinguish his elaborate optimism.
- Agnes Wickfield
- Agnes Wickfield is a lawyer's thoughtful daughter who offers David friendship, understanding, and steady moral guidance.
- Uriah Heep
- Uriah Heep is a law clerk whose exaggerated humility disguises ambition in the Wickfield household.
- Clara
- Clara is David's young, affectionate mother, whose uncertain nature leaves her vulnerable to Murdstone's authority.
- Dora
- Dora is the pretty daughter of David's employer, whose charm captures David's romantic imagination.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 364,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 24 h 15 min
- Listening time40 h 25 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 14 other languages