In a book that is half fairy tale and half delicate autobiography, Dickens transforms his life's experience into a marvelous series of comic and emotional adventures, in the spirit of the great eighteenth-century writers he admires so much. Few readers can remain unmoved by David's fate, and even fewer can fail to be thrilled by his story. The harsh Murdstone, the incompetent Micawber, the overly pleasant and deceitful Uriah Heep, and David Copperfield himself, into whom Dickens places so much of his own early life, form a central part of our literary heritage. This edition reproduces G.K. Chesterton's original introductory text and includes thirty-nine illustrations by Phiz.