David Copperfield

Dickens called it his "favourite child," and David Copperfield is widely considered his most personal novel — a semi-autobiographical journey from a miserable, impoverished childhood through the trials of young adulthood to hard-won happiness. Narrated by David himself, the story is populated with one of Dickens' most memorable casts: the sycophantic villain Uriah Heep, the charming but reckless Steerforth, the eccentric and eternally optimistic Mr Micawber, the formidable Aunt Betsey Trotwood, and the sweet but fragile Dora. By turns comic, tender, tragic, and sharp, it captures the full texture of Victorian England while telling a story that feels startlingly modern. Virginia Woolf called it the most perfect of all Dickens' novels. There are few stamps on some pages on the book