David Copperfield is a classic novel by Charles Dickens. It has a long full original title: "The Personal History,
Experience and Observations of David Copperfield the Younger, of Blunderstone Rookery, Which He Never Meant to be Published On Any Account."
The story traces the
childhood and youth of David Copperfield, who is unhappily affected by the remarriage of his widowed mother to Mr Murdstone, and later, by his distressing experience working in a London factory where he is exposed to the endless verbal overdose from Wilkins Micawber with whom he lodges. Escaping from London, David takes refuge at Dover with Betwey Trotwood, his aunt. He becomes a novelist, after a conventional schooling and a brief legal career.
He marries Dora Spenlow. It is an
unhappy union but he is none the less devastated by her early death. He forms friendship with James Steerforth but somehow disturbed by Steerforth's elopement with Emily, the niece of the Yarmouth fisherman, Mr Peggotty.
In all his untoward and
sad experiences, David seems to have taken
life as a matter of fact, and with calmness at
heart.
In the end, he ultimately finds happiness with the faithful Agnes Wickfield, whom he has known since childhood, and whose own future seems threatened by the wiles of her father, Uriah Heep.