This elegant hardcover book with gold-embossed wreath is agreat gift. Its line-engravings, over 25 of them, make it a classiccollectibles. My family created our own Christmas Carol dinner using the book. Dinners and feasts based on the book are staged nationwide at historic hotels and as a part of Gerald Charles Dickens' American Holiday Tour. The book was written by his mother and father, past president of Dickens world-wide Fellowship.

So why did I begin David Copperfield? Well I didn't want to do homework and I thought it would be nice to say that I had read a great work of literature. Why did I finish David Copperfield? Because it was one of most intrigueing books I have ever read (and by this point I really NEEDED to do that homework too!) Each character was deep and complex, not a flat one in the book! I enjoyed the way an event here or there would remind me of my own life (being close to the same age of Mr. Copperfield) and how I felt as if I actually knew all of the people he delt with. I will admit that the going is slow plot wise, but the characters! ohhh the characters! If you have enjoyed Jane Eyre or Cider House Rules, I would strongly recomend this as well. I would recomend this anyway, but if you liked those!

Suchoff bases his far-ranging analysis of three major novelists of modernity - Dickens, Melville, and Kafka - on the stimulating intellectual frame inspired by the now classic Frankfurt School theorists - Adorno, Horkheimer, and Benjamin - and by their interpretation of history, which goes back to the first half of the twentieth century. Against the anti-historical reading of culture, the Frankfurt School claimed that artefacts contained the traces of their dialectical links with their times and that art worked against the grain of hegemonic representations, thus carrying out an essentially redemptive role in the domain of culture. According to Suchoff, this approach can still offer innovative and meaningful interpretations of the modern novel, capable of highlighting the oppositional role played by mass culture in and through texts, in the face of what he regards as reductive and conservative readings of modernism. Starting with Victorianism, Suchoff then discusses how the commodification of the novelist does not suppress Dickens's subversive rewriting of Victorian stereotypes. He concentrates on "Little Dorrit" to retrace in the subtext of this emblematic and most decent novel a repressed narrative of sexual abuse and unspeakable violence against women, a narrative that is nevertheless voiced by eloquent textual clues. Melville's work is interpreted as a powerful and devastating revision of American myths of power, destined to shipwreck like Ahab's ship, the Pequod. Finally, Kafka is analysed as a writer who thoughtfully comes to terms with Jewish identity, Zionism and political action, against the interpretative cliché that would deny his involvement with the challenges of his times. Suchoff's analysis manages to combine both sound theoretical knowledge and clever textual analysis, capturing the making and remaking of ideology in the discursive layers of the literary artefact. Doubtless, his convincing interpretation of these three major writers, who are so diversely engaged with history, makes his book not just an interesting contribution to the large corpus of criticism on Dickens, Melville and Kafka in the widening field of cultural studies, but a stimulus to apply such critical tools to other texts.

Martin Jarvis performs a fabulous reading of "David
Copperfield". His interpretation of Dickens's colorful
cast of characters is spot-on.

My only complaint is with the format of the CDs themselves.
Most MP3 players have a feature for moving from folder to
folder and for browsing among MP3 files in a given folder.
This allows one to quickly find one's bookmark, so to
speak. But on each of the "David Copperfield" CD's, all the
MP3 files are collected in one folder, thereby forcing the
listener to manually page through a large number of files on
those occasions (such as power disconnection) where the MP3
player loses its memory of its last stopping point.

Given the quality of the reading, however, the CD formatting
is a minor nit.

I absoulutely love this book! I was required to read Great Expectations for school, and what I thought was going to be a long and dull school novel turned out to be my favorite book of all times. It has everything that you could want in a story; life lessons, mystery, love, sadness, regret, passion, and so much more! If you enjoy reading about life's twists and turns, like the way Dickens writes, or you just want to read a good book, Great Expectations is the perfect choice. You will instantly fall in love with this Charles Dickens classic!

This edition of Dickens' Great Expectations is considered one of, if not THE scholarly edition now in print. It contains a cogent introduction to the novel and an exhaustive appendix. Although the price will keep many, if not all, from purchasing the book it is definetly look for from a library--looking in a university's library is probably the best bet for finding a copy.

This slender volume is Charles Dickens' written interpertation on the four Gospels. He made the provision that it was not to be published until much later. It is a father's testimony of the truth of the things he held dear. A real treasure.

This is a book I first checked out from the library in college. I must tell you, for anyone who wants to become a writer, this is the most fascinating book. After I read this baby at least five times, and the University of Iowa library was screaming to get it back, I must have checked it out at least 4 more times. Now that I can, I have my own copy. This book will explain to you--from the inside--how Charles Dickens planned and constructed his novels. Remember the famous Hemingway quote: "Fiction is architecture, not interior decorating." This book contains the blueprints for dozens of now-famous novels. curmudgeon99@earthlink.net

Being a lover of fine literature, the world of Charles Dickenshas always held a special place in my heart. It's a place and a timeuniquely his own. I had always know that much of what he wrote about was autobiographical. But not until reading MacKenzie's work did I have a full understanding of the man. She starts with his rough origins, which strongly reflect the world of David Copperfield, takes us through his early working years, his personal life, and lastly, his physical decline. The book gives us insights into the man, and fleshes him out like so many of his characters. MacKenzie describes his jealousy of other writers, his struggle to financially care for his extended family, describes the plays he painstakenly put on with his family and friends, details the summer vacations with his family, his reading tours of America, and, most importantly, his writing. His serialzied novles became the number one source of entertainment in the English speaking world. Crowds would gather on American docks, waiting for the English ships to unload the next installment of his latest novel. Families would gather around and read the work aloud, living and dying with each plot twist. MacKenzie shows how Dickens himself agaonized over every plot twist. The characters would become like family members to him. Bringing harm to them would often bring tears flowing from his eyes as he read the just finished installment to his family and friends. It's well worth the effort to try and find.

I listened to the unabridged audio tape version of this book narrated by Michael Page. It's one of those deals where you listen to each tape entirely on the left channel, then play the whole tape again on the right channel to get the next part of the story. Which is kind of awkward, since you forget which channel you were on if you also use your stereo for music; but these editions are probably the least expensive (by the hour) audio tapes you can buy.

I think Dickens' tendency toward exhaustive descriptions works a lot better when you're listening to it in the car than when you're reading it in print. I might never have had the patience to read the actual book while sitting in a chair, but listening to it in the car was pretty entertaining. Colorful characters, humor, suspense, unexpected plot twists; I can picture a lot of it in my mind even now. A recommended story.