Orphaned of a father, David lives a peaceful childhood together with his young mother Clara and Miss Peggotty, the elderly housekeeper. Returning from a short beach holiday with the Peggottys, where he makes friends with little Emily, David discovers that her mother has married Mr. Murdstone, a charming fortune hunter, in his absence. A severe apprenticeship begins for him which ends with imprisonment in the boarding school of Salem, where he makes friends with a rich lodger, Steerforth until he is urgently called home, only to say goodbye to his mother who, in the meantime , was dying of grief and the oppression of her second husband.