David Copperfield

David Copperfield starts off by telling us about his birth. He is born on a Friday night, and begins to cry the moment the clock strikes midnight, which is considered as an unlucky omen. But luckily he is born with a caul, which is a sort of membrane covering a newborn's head, which is thought to be a good omen. Just before his birth his formidable great-aunt, Miss Betsy Trotwood marches in anddemands that if the child is a girl, she will be named Betsey Trotwood Copperfield, and she will personally supervise its upbringing. This upsets David's mother. But once David is born, Miss Trotwood leaves in a huff.

David thinks back and remembers his pretty widowed mother and their cheerful servant named Peggotty.. David has pleasant memories of his early years in the family's ramblinghouse. One night, he is reading to Peggotty, and asks her if a person whose husband or wife has died is allowed to remarry.


At that moment David's mother enters with a man named Mr. Murdstone to whom David takes an instant dislike. Later, he hears Peggotty arguing with his mother and saying that David's father would not have liked Mr. Murdstone as a suitor for his wife. As time goes byDavid becomes used to Mr. Murdstone though he still isn't fond of him and continues to dislike him. One day he is sent away to spend two weeks with Peggotty at her brother's cottage at Yarmouth. David's mother is very upset and cries when he leaves but Mr. Murdstone appears and chides her.

David has a nice holiday at Peggotty's strange house in Yarmouth, which is actually a beached ship, hollowedout and converted into a home. David sees Peggotty's brother and Peggotty's nephew Ham, but he enjoys playing most with Em'ly, an orphaned girl whose family died at sea. Playing on the beach, David and Em'ly kiss, and the young boy decides that he is in love with her. When Em'ly runs onto a plank extending over the deep water, David worries that she will drown; he comments that it might havebeen better if she would have done so. When David and Peggotty return home, David finds that his mother has married Mr. Murdstone in his absence.

David misses Em'ly and hates his new stepfather who announces that he intends to raise David firmly and threatens to whip David severely unless his behavior improves. After dinner one night, Mr. Murdstone's arrives in a coach and announces coldlythat she dislikes boys and that David's manners need to be improved. Over time, Miss Murdstone and her brother assume control of the household. One day when David does badly at his lessons and Murdstone beats him; David bites his stepfather's hand in the process and is confine to his room for five days. At the end of five days Peggotty warns David through the keyhole that he is to be shipped to aschool near London which is exactly what happens.

As David sits crying in the cart, it stops after about half a mile and Peggotty comes out from behind a hedgerow, and gives David some cakes, some money and a note from his mother, and a consoling hug. As Mr. Barkes the cart driver is kind to David, who shares with him a cake. David is left at an inn in Yarmouth, and then he continues on acoach into London, arriving early the next morning. No one is there to receive David in the metropolis, and at first he is afraid that he has been deserted. But he is picked up by Mr. Mell who is one of his new schoolmasters, and taken to Salem House, which is an old, crumbling building and his new school. After a month under Mr. Mell's supervision, David meets Mr. Creakle, who runs Salem Houseand is a friend of Mr. Murdstone's. He is accompanied by a man with a wooden leg, who speaks for him as Mr. Creakle can only whisper. The next morning, David meets Mr. Sharp, Mr. Mell's senior schoolmaster. He also meets and befriends ,Tommy Traddles a young boy. The other students arrive and mock David, but because Tommy is with him they are not as bad as David had feared. David also meets James...