David Copperfield

First published in 1849-50, this novel is David Copperfield's own account of his life from a Suffolk childhood. After his mother's remarriage to the harsh Mr Murdstone, David is sent to a London warehouse, runs away to his aunt Betsey Trotwood in Dover, and grows into a parliamentary reporter and novelist. The narrative gathers the Micawbers, Uriah Heep, Steerforth, Little Em'ly, and Agnes Wickfield around questions of work, debt, seduction, and what a gentleman owes people weaker than himself. It is a first-person Bildungsroman of Victorian schooling, labour, and marriage, told as memory rather than as a mystery.

39 leaves of original b&w Illustrations, by Phiz. Burgundy quarter-leather with black leather spine label. Dark red slipcase. Facsimile of the Nonesuch Press.