David Copperfield (novel)
Overview
The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account), commonly referred to as David Copperfield, is the eighth novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

, first published as a novel in 1850. Like most of his works, it originally appeared in serial form
Serial (literature)
In literature, a serial is a publishing format by which a single large work, most often a work of narrative fiction, is presented in contiguous installments—also known as numbers, parts, or fascicles—either issued as separate publications or appearing in sequential issues of a single periodical...

 a year earlier. Many elements within the novel follow events in Dickens' own life, and it is probably the most autobiographical
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...

 of all of his novels.
Quotations

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.

Chapter 1.

You'll find us rough, sir, but you'll find us ready.

Chapter 3.

I am a lone lorn creetur and everythink goes contrairy with me.

Chapter 3.

Ye-es. Barkis is willin'.

Chapter 5.

A loving heart was better and stronger than wisdom…

Chapter 9. Often quoted as "A loving heart is the truest wisdom".

"David," said Mr. Murdstone, "to the young this is a world for action; not for moping and droning in."

Chapter 10.

When I lived at home with papa and mama, I really should have hardly understood what the word meant, in the sense in which I now employ it, but experientia does it, — as papa used to say.

Chapter 11.

"My other piece of advice, Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, "you know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and — and in short you are for ever floored. As I am!"

Chapter 12.

I never will desert Mr. Micawber.

Chapter 12.

It's a mad world. Mad as Bedlam, boy!

Chapter 14.

 
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