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pubOne.info thank you for your continued support and wish to present you this new edition. I do not find it easy to get sufficiently far away from this Book, in the first sensations of having finished it, to refer to it with the composure which this formal heading would seem to require. My interest in it, is so recent and strong; and my mind is so divided between pleasure and regret - pleasure in the achievement of a long design, regret in the separation from many companions - that I am in danger of wearying the reader whom I love, with personal confidences, and private emotions.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	23 octobre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819919308
Langue	English

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PREFACE TO 1850 EDITION
I do not find it easy to get sufficiently far awayfrom this Book, in the first sensations of having finished it, torefer to it with the composure which this formal heading would seemto require. My interest in it, is so recent and strong; and my mindis so divided between pleasure and regret - pleasure in theachievement of a long design, regret in the separation from manycompanions - that I am in danger of wearying the reader whom Ilove, with personal confidences, and private emotions.
Besides which, all that I could say of the Story, toany purpose, I have endeavoured to say in it.
It would concern the reader little, perhaps, toknow, how sorrowfully the pen is laid down at the close of atwo-years' imaginative task; or how an Author feels as if he weredismissing some portion of himself into the shadowy world, when acrowd of the creatures of his brain are going from him for ever.Yet, I have nothing else to tell; unless, indeed, I were to confess(which might be of less moment still) that no one can ever believethis Narrative, in the reading, more than I have believed it in thewriting.
Instead of looking back, therefore, I will lookforward. I cannot close this Volume more agreeably to myself, thanwith a hopeful glance towards the time when I shall again put forthmy two green leaves once a month, and with a faithful remembranceof the genial sun and showers that have fallen on these leaves ofDavid Copperfield, and made me happy. London, October, 1850.
PREFACE TO THE CHARLES DICKENS EDITION
I REMARKED in the original Preface to this Book,that I did not find it easy to get sufficiently far away from it,in the first sensations of having finished it, to refer to it withthe composure which this formal heading would seem to require. Myinterest in it was so recent and strong, and my mind was so dividedbetween pleasure and regret - pleasure in the achievement of a longdesign, regret in the separation from many companions - that I wasin danger of wearying the reader with personal confidences andprivate emotions.
Besides which, all that I could have said of theStory to any purpose, I had endeavoured to say in it.
It would concern the reader little, perhaps, to knowhow sorrowfully the pen is laid down at the close of a two-years'imaginative task; or how an Author feels as if he were dismissingsome portion of himself into the shadowy world, when a crowd of thecreatures of his brain are going from him for ever. Yet, I hadnothing else to tell; unless, indeed, I were to confess (whichmight be of less moment still), that no one can ever believe thisNarrative, in the reading, more than I believed it in thewriting.
So true are these avowals at the present day, that Ican now only take the reader into one confidence more. Of all mybooks, I like this the best. It will be easily believed that I am afond parent to every child of my fancy, and that no one can everlove that family as dearly as I love them. But, like many fondparents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And hisname is DAVID COPPERFIELD. 1869
THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE OF DAVIDCOPPERFIELD THE YOUNGER
CHAPTER 1 - I AM BORN
Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my ownlife, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, thesepages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, Irecord that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on aFriday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clockbegan to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.
In consideration of the day and hour of my birth, itwas declared by the nurse, and by some sage women in theneighbourhood who had taken a lively interest in me several monthsbefore there was any possibility of our becoming personallyacquainted, first, that I was destined to be unlucky in life; andsecondly, that I was privileged to see ghosts and spirits; boththese gifts inevitably attaching, as they believed, to all unluckyinfants of either gender, born towards the small hours on a Fridaynight.
I need say nothing here, on the first head, becausenothing can show better than my history whether that prediction wasverified or falsified by the result. On the second branch of thequestion, I will only remark, that unless I ran through that partof my inheritance while I was still a baby, I have not come into ityet. But I do not at all complain of having been kept out of thisproperty; and if anybody else should be in the present enjoyment ofit, he is heartily welcome to keep it.
I was born with a caul, which was advertised forsale, in the newspapers, at the low price of fifteen guineas.Whether sea-going people were short of money about that time, orwere short of faith and preferred cork jackets, I don't know; all Iknow is, that there was but one solitary bidding, and that was froman attorney connected with the bill-broking business, who offeredtwo pounds in cash, and the balance in sherry, but declined to beguaranteed from drowning on any higher bargain. Consequently theadvertisement was withdrawn at a dead loss - for as to sherry, mypoor dear mother's own sherry was in the market then - and tenyears afterwards, the caul was put up in a raffle down in our partof the country, to fifty members at half-a-crown a head, the winnerto spend five shillings. I was present myself, and I remember tohave felt quite uncomfortable and confused, at a part of myselfbeing disposed of in that way. The caul was won, I recollect, by anold lady with a hand-basket, who, very reluctantly, produced fromit the stipulated five shillings, all in halfpence, and twopencehalfpenny short - as it took an immense time and a great waste ofarithmetic, to endeavour without any effect to prove to her. It isa fact which will be long remembered as remarkable down there, thatshe was never drowned, but died triumphantly in bed, at ninety-two.I have understood that it was, to the last, her proudest boast,that she never had been on the water in her life, except upon abridge; and that over her tea (to which she was extremely partial)she, to the last, expressed her indignation at the impiety ofmariners and others, who had the presumption to go 'meandering'about the world. It was in vain to represent to her that someconveniences, tea perhaps included, resulted from thisobjectionable practice. She always returned, with greater emphasisand with an instinctive knowledge of the strength of her objection,'Let us have no meandering.'
Not to meander myself, at present, I will go back tomy birth.
I was born at Blunderstone, in Suffolk, or 'thereby', as they say in Scotland. I was a posthumous child. My father'seyes had closed upon the light of this world six months, when mineopened on it. There is something strange to me, even now, in thereflection that he never saw me; and something stranger yet in theshadowy remembrance that I have of my first childish associationswith his white grave-stone in the churchyard, and of theindefinable compassion I used to feel for it lying out alone therein the dark night, when our little parlour was warm and bright withfire and candle, and the doors of our house were - almost cruelly,it seemed to me sometimes - bolted and locked against it.
An aunt of my father's, and consequently agreat-aunt of mine, of whom I shall have more to relate by and by,was the principal magnate of our family. Miss Trotwood, or MissBetsey, as my poor mother always called her, when she sufficientlyovercame her dread of this formidable personage to mention her atall (which was seldom), had been married to a husband younger thanherself, who was very handsome, except in the sense of the homelyadage, 'handsome is, that handsome does' - for he was stronglysuspected of having beaten Miss Betsey, and even of having once, ona disputed question of supplies, made some hasty but determinedarrangements to throw her out of a two pair of stairs' window.These evidences of an incompatibility of temper induced Miss Betseyto pay him off, and effect a separation by mutual consent. He wentto India with his capital, and there, according to a wild legend inour family, he was once seen riding on an elephant, in company witha Baboon; but I think it must have been a Baboo - or a Begum.Anyhow, from India tidings of his death reached home, within tenyears. How they affected my aunt, nobody knew; for immediately uponthe separation, she took her maiden name again, bought a cottage ina hamlet on the sea-coast a long way off, established herself thereas a single woman with one servant, and was understood to livesecluded, ever afterwards, in an inflexible retirement.
My father had once been a favourite of hers, Ibelieve; but she was mortally affronted by his marriage, on theground that my mother was 'a wax doll'. She had never seen mymother, but she knew her to be not yet twenty. My father and MissBetsey never met again. He was double my mother's age when hemarried, and of but a delicate constitution. He died a yearafterwards, and, as I have said, six months before I came into theworld.
This was the state of matters, on the afternoon of,what I may be excused for calling, that eventful and importantFriday. I can make no claim therefore to have known, at that time,how matters stood; or to have any remembrance, founded on theevidence of my own senses, of what follows.
My mother was sitting by the fire, but poorly inhealth, and very low in spirits, looking at it through her tears,and desponding heavily about herself and the fatherless littlestranger, who was already welcomed by some grosses of propheticpins, in a drawer upstairs, to a world not at all excited on thesubject of his arrival; my mother, I say, was sitting by the fire,that bright, windy March afternoon, very timid and sad, and verydoubtful of ever coming alive out of the trial that was before her,when, lifting her eyes as she dried them, to the window opposite,she saw a strange lady coming up the garden.
MY mother had a sure foreboding at the sec