David Copperfield (Magill Book Reviews)
At a glance:
- Author: Charles Dickens
- First Published: 1849
- Type of Work: Novel
- Genres: Long fiction, Social realism, Bildungsroman
- Subjects: Justice, Maturation or coming of age, Family or family life, Self-discovery, Love or romance, Authors or writers, Nineteenth century, Social issues, Autobiography, Friendship, Abandoned children, Schools or school life, Poverty or poor people, England or English people, Theft, Stepfamily, Abandonment, Boys, Victorian era or Victorianism
- Locales: London, England, Australia, Canterbury, England
Born to a gentle, helpless woman whose husband has died, little David is given an evil stepfather straight out of fairy tales when his mother marries the cruel Mr. Murdstone. Murdstone drives David’s mother to an early grave. Orphaned, David is sent off to school, where he encounters the additional cruelty of a tyrannical headmaster, but he also makes friends with the fascinating and Byronic James Steerforth. Put to work in the Murdstones’ wine warehouse (like the blacking factory episode of Dickens’ own youth), David runs away and is taken in by his eccentric aunt, Betsey...
[The entire page is 528 words long]
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