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CHAPTER 18. A RETROSPECT My school-days! The silent gliding on of my existence—the unseen, unfelt progress of my life—from childhood up to youth! Let me think, as I look back upon that flowing water, ...

CHAPTER 17. SOMEBODY TURNS UP It has not occurred to me to mention Peggotty since I ran away; but, of course, I wrote her a letter almost as soon as I was housed at Dover, and another, and a longer le...

CHAPTER 16. I AM A NEW BOY IN MORE SENSES THAN ONE Next morning, after breakfast, I entered on school life again. I went, accompanied by Mr. Wickfield, to the scene of my future studies—a grave buildi...

CHAPTER 15. I MAKE ANOTHER BEGINNING Mr. Dick and I soon became the best of friends, and very often, when his day’s work was done, went out together to fly the great kite. Every day of his life he had...

CHAPTER 14. MY AUNT MAKES UP HER MIND ABOUT ME On going down in the morning, I found my aunt musing so profoundly over the breakfast table, with her elbow on the tray, that the contents of the urn had...

CHAPTER 13. THE SEQUEL OF MY RESOLUTION For anything I know, I may have had some wild idea of running all the way to Dover, when I gave up the pursuit of the young man with the donkey-cart, and starte...

CHAPTER 12. LIKING LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT NO BETTER, I FORM A GREAT RESOLUTION In due time, Mr. Micawber’s petition was ripe for hearing; and that gentleman was ordered to be discharged under the Act,...

CHAPTER 11. I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON’T LIKE IT I know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to...

CHAPTER 10. I BECOME NEGLECTED, AND AM PROVIDED FOR The first act of business Miss Murdstone performed when the day of the solemnity was over, and light was freely admitted into the house, was to give...

CHAPTER 9. I HAVE A MEMORABLE BIRTHDAY I PASS over all that happened at school, until the anniversary of my birthday came round in March. Except that Steerforth was more to be admired than ever, I rem...

CHAPTER 8. MY HOLIDAYS. ESPECIALLY ONE HAPPY AFTERNOON When we arrived before day at the inn where the mail stopped, which was not the inn where my friend the waiter lived, I was shown up to a nice li...

CHAPTER 7. MY ‘FIRST HALF’ AT SALEM HOUSE School began in earnest next day. A profound impression was made upon me, I remember, by the roar of voices in the schoolroom suddenly becoming hushed as deat...

CHAPTER 6. I ENLARGE MY CIRCLE OF ACQUAINTANCE I HAD led this life about a month, when the man with the wooden leg began to stump about with a mop and a bucket of water, from which I inferred that pre...

CHAPTER 5. I AM SENT AWAY FROM HOME We might have gone about half a mile, and my pocket-handkerchief was quite wet through, when the carrier stopped short. Looking out to ascertain for what, I saw, to...

CHAPTER 4. I FALL INTO DISGRACE If the room to which my bed was removed were a sentient thing that could give evidence, I might appeal to it at this day—who sleeps there now, I wonder!—to bear witness...

CHAPTER 3. I HAVE A CHANGE The carrier’s horse was the laziest horse in the world, I should hope, and shuffled along, with his head down, as if he liked to keep people waiting to whom the packages wer...

CHAPTER 2. I OBSERVE The first objects that assume a distinct presence before me, as I look far back, into the blank of my infancy, are my mother with her pretty hair and youthful shape, and Peggotty ...

THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE OF DAVID COPPERFIELD THE YOUNGER CHAPTER 1. I AM BORN Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, ...

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,...

PREFACE TO 1850 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 wo...