David Copperfield

"The most perfect of all the Dickens novels."-- Virginia WoolfThroughout his long writing life, Dickens sought to tell his own story, over and over. It is a story of a young man who, born into confusion, eventually makes order of his own life -- usually despite, rather than because of, his family heritage. Perhaps the greatest of Dickens' orphans, David Copperfield is a happy child, living with his kind and gentle mother and nurse Peggotty, until his mother remarries. Unfortunately for David, his stepfather is the hard, cruel Mr. Murdstone, who brings his dark, life-crushing eminence into David's home, along with his equally cold and unyielding sister, Miss Murdstone. David's mother is powerless to stop their cruelties toward her young son -- and after one of literature's most-satisfying bites, David is sent away. After an idyllic visit with Peggotty's family at their upside-down boat house beside the sea, where David befriends dear little Em'ly, one of Dickens' most beloved characters, David is sent away to school. At school, he meets the formative friends of his life -- the ambiguous and handsome Steerforth, and the unlikely future hero, Tommy Traddles. After his frail mother's death, David once again returns home, where he makes the acquaintance of another of Dickens' great characters -- the improvident Mr. Micawber, he of many children -- loosely based on Dickens' own financially-incompetent father. After experiencing the chaos of the Micawber house, David then finds his outspoken aunt, Betsy Trotwood, and through her, meets Agnes Wickfield -- the young woman who eventually becomes his "bright star, ever pointing upward." At this point, returning to school, David encounters the oily, hand-wringing, cringing Uriah Heep -- and no one's life will be the same again.