40 h 26 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 40 h 26 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
How do you become the hero of your own life when others keep deciding your fate?
David Copperfield begins life in a quiet English village, but his mother's marriage to Edward Murdstone brings fear into his home. School offers little shelter. Sent to work in a London warehouse while still a boy, David must find a way toward kindness, safety and a future of his own.
Charles Dickens lets David tell his own story, looking back with warmth, humour and painful honesty. Around him gather loyal Clara Peggotty, fierce Betsey Trotwood and endlessly hopeful Wilkins Micawber. As work, friendship and love widen his world, David faces a harder task: learning whom to trust, and seeing where his own good heart leads him astray.
What you’ll discover
- A childhood under pressure Follow a vulnerable boy through harsh treatment without losing sight of his warmth and imagination.
- Kindness with a backbone Meet Betsey Trotwood and Clara Peggotty, whose different kinds of care give David much-needed support.
- Charm worth questioning Watch James Steerforth's easy charm test David's ability to judge the people he admires.
- The cost of work See how money and class shape choices, from warehouse labour to the law.
- Laughter beside the pain Find humour in Micawber's stubborn hope and tenderness in David's effort to understand himself.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy big, warm, funny novels filled with unforgettable characters will love this book. It also suits those who like to follow a whole life through a narrator looking back.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- David learns to trust himself
- Kindness makes a real family
- Cruelty hides behind claims of duty
- Loss leaves David without protection
- Betsey chooses to protect David
- Humility can conceal an ambition
- Charm clouds David's judgment
- Memory holds humor beside pain
- Character matters more than rank
Who’s who
- David CopperfieldThe narrator, a sensitive boy who loses both parents and must find his own way to manhood and a calling as a writer.
- Clara PeggottyDavid's devoted nurse, rough, plump and loving, who wants only to keep him safe and loved.
- Betsey TrotwoodDavid's formidable great-aunt, who guards her principles, her donkey-free lawn and the people she has chosen to protect.
- James SteerforthA handsome, brilliant older schoolfellow who wins David's worship and wants his own way in everything.
- Uriah HeepA clerk with clammy hands and a fawning smile who works patiently to gain power over the family that employs him.
- Wilkins MicawberA grand talker, always in debt and always sure that something will turn up, who befriends the boy in London.
- Agnes WickfieldA calm, wise girl who keeps her father's house in Canterbury and becomes David's closest adviser.
- Little Em'lyMr. Peggotty's lively niece, who dreams of becoming a lady so that she can reward the uncle who raised her.
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- Hardcover
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- Large print hardcover
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David Copperfield
by Charles Dickens · 1849
A fatherless boy, a harsh stepfather and a bottle warehouse stand between David Copperfield and a life of his own.
ChallengingOver 20 hours to read20 languages
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“When people say Dickens exaggerates, it seems to me they can have no eyes and no ears.”
In short
Can a boy who loses his father before birth, and his mother in childhood, ever become the hero of his own life? David Copperfield opens with that question.
David Copperfield at a glance
- Reading time
- About 23 h 20 min18 h 30 min fast, 27 h 45 min slow
- Length
- 333,400 words
- Library level
- Challenging long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- First published
- 1849by Charles Dickens
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A child is born to a house of women
David is born at Blunderstone in Suffolk, six months after his father has died. His mother Clara is a young, timid widow. She lives in a house called the Rookery, where the old nests still hang in the elms but the birds left long ago.
On the afternoon of the birth, a tall, rigid lady walks up the garden and peers through the window. She is Miss Betsey Trotwood, the great-aunt who was offended by his father's marriage. She announces that the baby will be a girl named Betsey Trotwood Copperfield. When the terrified doctor, Mr. Chillip, tells her the child is a boy, she swings her bonnet at his head and leaves the family.
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Details
- First published
- 1849
- Language
- English
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Dickens, Charles. David Copperfield. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/david-copperfield.
Dickens, C. (2026). David Copperfield. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/david-copperfield (Original work published 1849)
Dickens, Charles. David Copperfield. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/david-copperfield.
@book{dickens2026david,
author = {Dickens, Charles},
title = {David Copperfield},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/david-copperfield},
note = {First published 1849}
}
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What is David Copperfield about?
It tells the life of David, from his birth after his father's death through a cruel stepfather, a lonely job in London and rescue by his aunt, to his adult search for love, work and a place in the world.
Is David Copperfield based on a true story?
It is a novel, but Dickens drew on his own childhood, including a spell of work as a boy in a London warehouse. He wrote it in 1849 and 1850 and later called it his favorite among his books.
Who is Uriah Heep?
Uriah Heep is the red-haired clerk in Mr. Wickfield's office who keeps saying he is humble. He flatters everyone and quietly plots to take control of the firm and of the family he serves.
The author
Charles Dickens
1812–1870 · English novelist
Charles Dickens was an English novelist born in Portsmouth in 1812. He lived in London and later at Gad’s Hill Place in Kent, where he died in 1870. His books include The Pickwick Papers (1836–1837), A Christmas Carol (1843), David Copperfield (1849–1850), and Great Expectations (1860–1861).
“Barkis is willing”
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