DavidCopperfield_PersonalHistoryofDavidC.epub

Charles Dickens DAVID COPPERFIELD With an Introduction and Notes by Jeremy Tambling Revised Edition Contents Introduction A Note on the Text David Copperfield Appendix I: Extracts from John Forster’s Life of Dickens Appendix II: The Number-Plans for David Copperfield Appendix III: The Draft Titles Notes A Dickens Chronology Further Reading Follow Penguin PENGUIN CLASSICS DAVID COPPERFIELD Charles Dickens was born at Portsmouth on 7 February 1812, the second of eight children. Dickens’s childhood experiences were similar to those depicted in David Copperfield. His father, who was a government clerk, was imprisoned for debt and Dickens was briefly sent to work in a blacking warehouse at the age of twelve. He received little formal education, but taught himself shorthand and became a reporter of parliamentary debates for the Morning Chronicle. He began to publish sketches in various periodicals, which were subsequently republished as Sketches by Boz. The Pickwick Papers were published in 1836–7 and after a slow start became a publishing phenomenon and Dickens’s characters the centre of a popular cult. Part of the sec......