David Copperfield Dickensalong

I managed to read my DC chapters in a day last time but it was half term and we were at the beach :) Not sure I will have the gift of such an empty day this time around.

I've just had Girl, Woman, Other AND The Dutch House come through on our library ebook reservation system. Going to be a scramble to read both of them and get my chapters done this month!

Yes, the plates for each volume as it was released are all at the beginning of my facsimile edition (I posted a few pics right at the start of the thread). People would have had them all bound up into volumes once they'd collected the finished set, I assume (?) with the Hablot K. Browne illustrations placed at the right point in the text.

It looks like these were the original illustrations, created in close collaboration with Dickens

www.darvillsrareprints.com/Browne%20Phiz%20David%20Copperfield.htm

I’ve got the same illustrations (I think - mine are by Phiz) in my copy which is published by Vintage. The only problem is that the illustrations aren’t quite in the right places to match up with the text - they seem to be a few pages too early so in some cases give away what happens in the next chapter!

Those illustrations are in my kindle edition. I'm thinking of buying a nice edition for the bookshelf, do all the editions have those in? Any edition to recommend?

(I'm in Wales and no shops open yet or I'd be in Waterstones)

One more

Sharing some of the illustrations from my old edition

Very cute kitty pic!

Are we on for 11 chapters this month? Must get started!

Am currently reading Toni Morrison's Beloved and am somewhat engrossed!!

You're all so disciplined! This is the first time I've read in instalments like this and I've really enjoyed the experience. The pace has worked well for me and I've tried to read a chapter every 3 days or so to keep on it and not forget what's going on. That didn't work very well this month though as life got in the way and I ended up having to read 6 chapters on the 1st!!

I’m equally on the fence about instalments v all in one Fortuna. I’ve tended to read all my chapters in a rush at the end of the month, so when I first come back to it I struggle to remember what’s happened before. However like you I think it would be hard going to read it all in one go. I do have the complete set of Dickens staring at me from the shelf so I do need to get on with some of his other long books. I might just have to break them up by reading something else alongside and alternating chapters to avoid boredom!!

Keith I shall look that up forthwith! It took me days to be able to face reviewing it. I feel I deserve a laugh after all that.

I keep debating with myself about the value of reading in installments vs in-a-oner, but some of the classics are so long it can be hard to keep going. I also found Villette quite fatiguing despite enjoying it. I'm finding DC quite unbalanced for action and wonder if I would have abandoned it due to earlier parts dragging on if I hadn't been in this group. I feel like I haven't had much to contribute but the the discussions have been invaluable to my understanding with things I either hadn't noticed or didn't the know the back story to. Although at times I wish I had just got on with it as I forget what's happening from month to month.

Fortuna, have you read Shamela? It's a piss-take of Pamela written by Fielding and quite good fun if you are finding the original a bit overwraught.

(From memory I would say it is quite a bit shorter too, although it's cough almost 30 years since I read it)

I loved Traddles' lock of hair escaping from the place it was being stored! My son has hair like that :) Nice to meet Sophy and find out that she is lovely.

Dickens is really exploring lots of issues about married relationships isn't he? Dora's refusal to consider the cookbook or the issues of household economics also tie in with the Micawbers and the autobiographical elements - easy to see how a household run by Dora could fall into debt rather quickly.

Uriah is getting better and better, I never understood why he was such a famous Dickens character but he's wonderfully awful and so vividly described.

Emily's letter though.... I may have missed something important. Are we to believe that she is incredibly unhappy with Steerforth or just feeling incredibly guilty about her treatment of Ham and her uncle? The tone of the letter sounded most odd to modern ears - surely she chose to elope with Steerforth (she did, right? I didn't miss anything there) so I can't work out whether she is unhappy-because-ruined-although-still-enjoying-all-the-illicit-sex-etc or if it's all gone horribly wrong.

1 chapter behind here, I'll finish tomorrow and catch up. I've found this month a bit of a slog but I think that's more about my state of lockdown mind than the actual book

I haven’t enjoyed these chapters as much as some previous ones, except the one discussing David and Dora’s housekeeping, which was hilarious! She really is a child isn’t she - drawing on his face and then being given a set of keys just to keep her amused. It’s obviously being set up for marital strife ahead.....

Piggy there was another amusing reference to Traddles’ hair - can’t recall the exact quotation but it was something about every individual strand standing on its tiptoes!

I also clocked the knitting and immediately thought of A Tale Of Two Cities. I will have to keep an eye out for more knitting references in other books to see if it is a recurring theme of his.

Other amusing things I noticed:

• the new tenant at the aunt’s old cottage inheriting her feud and waging ‘incessant war against donkeys’!
• Mrs Markleham saying that there isn’t a room in the house ‘in which a paper can be what I call, read’ which reminded me of the mum from the sitcom Miranda!

I’m intrigued to see what Martha has to say and hope Little Em’ly turns up soon.