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David's happy childhood days in the village of Blunderstone with his mother, Clara, and at Great Yarmouth with their servant, Peggotty and her family, are brought to an end by the marriage of Clara to high-minded but brutal Edward Murdstone. He and his sister, Jane, move into the peaceful little house and begin a repressive regime. // Romance is in the air as David secretly gets engaged to his employer's daughter, the beautiful but dizzy Dora Spenlow -- despite Mr Spenlow's outrage. Spenlow's death soon after, however, gives David a chance to marry Dora, and he starts to write his stories and columns for newspapers. But what of the beautiful Agnes Wickfield, his one constant friend?

David is now working in London as a clerk at Spenlow's and living at Mrs. Crupp's house. However, her fondness for "peppermint cordial" renders her incapable of fulfilling her promise to Aunt Betsey to treat David as if he were her own son. // A chance meeting with his old schoolfriend, James Steerforth, leads to David being invited to dinner with Steerforth's mother. David also discovers from Agnes that her father's clerk, the lurking and evil Uriah Heep, is to become a partner in her father's business - and the stage is set for a bitter battle.