David Copperfield is born into a tender, fatherless home, cherished by his gentle young mother and their devoted servant, Peggotty. But the warmth of those early years is shattered when his mother marries the cold and cruel Mr. Murdstone, who packs the boy off to a harsh boarding school and, before long, casts him into hardship and lonely toil far from anyone who loves him. Through it all, David's spirit and his gift for finding kindness in unlikely places carry him forward. Dickens's warm, richly peopled 1850 novel, his most personal, follows one boy's long journey from a difficult childhood toward the man he will become.