Books: Dickens Brushed Up

DAVID COPPERFIELD—Charles Dickens; condensed by Robert Graves; edited by Merrill P. Paine—Harcourt, Brace ($1.00). When Robert Graves's The Real David Copperfield appeared in England last year, critics shouted "Blasphemy!" Author Graves had laid impious hands on the sacred text of David Copperfield, had dared not only to abridge it but also to rewrite it. Calling David Copperfield an autobiographical novel in which Dickens "for once . . . felt personally committed to the truth,'' and which he managed to keep "honest, though diluted, for quite a third of the way," Author...

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