Children's Book Week: David Copperfield

David Copperfield

David Copperfield is the eighth novel by Charles Dickens. The novel's full title is The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account).^{[N 1]} It was first published as a serial in 1849–50, and as a book in 1850.

The novel features the character David Copperfield, and is written in the first person, as a description of his life until middle age, with his own adventures and the numerous friends and enemies he meets along his way. It is his journey of change and growth from infancy to maturity, as people enter and leave his life and he passes through the stages of his development.

It has been called his masterpiece, "the triumph of the art of Dickens",^[2][3] which marks a turning point in his work, the point of separation between the novels of youth and those of maturity.^[3][4] Though written in the first person, David Copperfield is considered to be more than an autobiography, going beyond this framework in the richness of its themes and the originality of its writing, which makes it a true autobiographical novel.^[4][5] In the words of the author, this novel was "a very complicated weaving of truth and invention".^[6] Some elements of the novel follow events in Dickens's own life.^[7] It was Dickens' favourite among his own novels. In the preface to the 1867 edition, Dickens wrote, "like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And his name is David Copperfield."^[8]

Dickens wrote this novel without an outline, unlike the way he wrote Dombey and Son, the previous novel. He wrote chapter summaries after the chapters were completed. Some aspects of the story were fixed in his mind from the start, but others, like the obsession of Mr Dick with Charles I, the profession of David Copperfield as a writer, and the sad fate of Dora, were not decided by Dickens until the serial publications were underway; August 1849, December 1849 and May 1850, respectively, were the dates when those decisions were made.^[9]

At first glance, the work is modeled in the loose and somewhat disjointed way of "personal histories" that was very popular in the United Kingdom of the 18th century;^{[N 2]} but in reality, David Copperfield is a carefully structured and unified novel. It begins, like other novels by Dickens, with a rather bleak painting of the conditions of childhood in Victorian England, notoriously when the troublesome children are parked in infamous boarding schools, then he strives to trace the slow social and intimate ascent of a young man who, painfully providing for the needs of his good aunt while continuing his studies, ends up becoming a writer; the story, writes Paul Davis, of "a Victorian everyman seeking self-understanding".^[4]

The novel has a primary theme of growth and the changes that occur on the way to maturity. In addition, Dickens included many aspects of Victorian Era life that he wanted to highlight or wished to change, which were primarily integrated into the story, using satire as one device. The plight of prostitutes and the attitude of middle class society to them, the status of women in marriage, the rigid class structure, are aspects that he highlighted, while the system for handling criminals, the quality of schools, and the employment of children in the fast-spreading factories of the 19th century were aspects he wished to influence, to change for the better. He, among other authors, achieved success in bringing about changes regarding child labour and schooling for more children up to age 12.^[10]

The story follows the life of David Copperfield from childhood to maturity. David was born in Blunderstone, Suffolk, England, six months after the death of his father. David spends his early years in relative happiness with his loving, childish mother and their kindly housekeeper, Clara Peggotty. They call him Davy. When he is seven years old his mother marries Edward Murdstone. To get him out of the way, David is sent to lodge with Peggotty's family in Yarmouth. Her brother, fisherman Mr Peggotty, lives in a house built in an upturned boat on the beach, with his adopted relatives Emily and Ham, and an elderly widow, Mrs Gummidge. "Little Em'ly" is somewhat spoiled by her fond foster father, and David is in love with her. They call him Master Copperfield.

On his return, David is given good reason to dislike his stepfather, who believes exclusively in firmness, and has similar feelings for Murdstone's sister Jane, who moves into the house soon afterwards. Between them they tyrannize his poor mother, making her and David's lives miserable, and when, in consequence, David falls behind in his studies, Murdstone attempts to thrash him – partly to further pain his mother. David bites him and soon afterwards is sent away to Salem House, a boarding school, under a ruthless headmaster named Mr Creakle. There he befriends an older boy, James Steerforth, and Tommy Traddles. He develops an impassioned admiration for Steerforth, perceiving him as someone noble, who could do great things if he would, and one who pays attention to him.

David goes home for the holidays to learn that his mother has given birth to a baby boy. Shortly after David returns to Salem House, his mother and her baby die, and David returns home immediately. Peggotty marries the local carrier, Mr Barkis. Murdstone sends David to work for a wine merchant in London – a business of which Murdstone is a joint owner. David's landlord, Wilkins Micawber, is arrested for debt and sent to the King's Bench Prison, where he remains for several months, before being released and moving to Plymouth. No one remains to care for David in London, so he decides to run away, with Micawber advising him to head to Dover, to find his only known remaining relative, his eccentric and kind-hearted great-aunt Betsey Trotwood. She had come to Blunderstone at his birth, only to depart in ire upon learning that he was not a girl. However, she takes pity on him and agrees to raise him, despite Murdstone's attempt to regain custody of David, on condition that he always try to 'be as like his sister, Betsey Trotwood' as he can be, meaning that he is to endeavour to emulate the prospective namesake she was disappointed not to have. David's great-aunt renames him "Trotwood Copperfield" and addresses him as "Trot", one of several names David is called by in the novel.

David's aunt sends him to a better school than the last he attended. It is run by Dr Strong, whose methods inculcate honour and self-reliance in his pupils. During term, David lodges with the lawyer Mr Wickfield, and his daughter Agnes, who becomes David's friend and confidante. Wickfield's clerk, Uriah Heep, also lives at the house.

By devious means, Uriah Heep gradually gains a complete ascendancy over the aging and alcoholic Wickfield, to Agnes's great sorrow. Heep hopes, and maliciously confides to David, that he aspires to marry Agnes. Ultimately with the aid of Micawber, who has been employed by Heep as a secretary, his fraudulent behaviour is revealed. At the end of the book, David encounters him in prison, convicted of attempting to defraud the Bank of England.

After completing school, David apprentices to be a proctor. During this time, due to Heep's fraudulent activities, his aunt's fortune has diminished. David toils to make a living. He works mornings and evenings for his former teacher Doctor Strong as a secretary, and also starts to learn shorthand, with the help of his old school-friend Traddles, upon completion reporting parliamentary debate for a newspaper. With considerable moral support from Agnes and his own great diligence and hard work, David ultimately finds fame and fortune as an author, writing fiction.

David's romantic but self-serving school friend, Steerforth, also re-acquaints himself with David, but then goes on to seduce and dishonour Emily, offering to marry her off to his manservant Littimer before deserting her in Europe. Her uncle Mr Peggotty manages to find her with the help of Martha, who had grown up in their part of England, and then settled in London. Ham, who had been engaged to marry Emily before the tragedy, dies in a fierce storm off the coast in attempting to succour a ship. Steerforth was aboard the ship and also died. Mr Peggotty takes Emily to a new life in Australia, accompanied by Mrs Gummidge and the Micawbers, where all eventually find security and happiness.

David, meanwhile, has fallen completely in love with Dora Spenlow, and then marries her. Their marriage proves troublesome for David in the sense of everyday practical affairs, but he never stops loving her. Dora dies early in their marriage after a miscarriage. After Dora's death, Agnes encourages David to return to normal life and his profession of writing. While living in Switzerland to dispel his grief over so many losses, David realises that he loves Agnes. Upon returning to England, after a failed attempt to conceal his feelings, David finds that Agnes loves him too. They quickly marry and in this marriage, he finds true happiness. David and Agnes then have at least five children, including a daughter named after his great-aunt, Betsey Trotwood.

Characters

• David Copperfield – The narrator and protagonist of the novel. David's father, David, Sr, died six months before he was born, and he learns his mother has died when he is at Salem House, on his ninth birthday. He is characterised in the book as having goals in his life, but much to learn to attain maturity.
• Clara Copperfield – David's affectionate and beautiful mother, described as being innocently childish, who dies while David is at Salem House school. She dies a couple of months after the birth of her second son, who dies a day or so later. That baby's father is Edward Murdstone, her second husband.
• Clara Peggotty – The faithful servant of the Copperfield family and a lifelong companion to David - she is called by her surname Peggotty within David's family, as her given name is Clara, the same as David's mother; she is also referred to at times as Barkis after her marriage to Mr Barkis. After her husband's death, Peggotty helps to put in order David's rooms in London and then returns to Yarmouth to keep house for her nephew, Ham Peggotty. Following Ham's death, she keeps house for David's aunt, Betsey Trotwood.
• Betsey Trotwood – David's eccentric and temperamental yet kind-hearted great-aunt; she becomes his guardian after he runs away from the Murdstone and Grinby warehouse in Blackfriars, London. She is present on the night of David's birth but leaves after hearing that Clara Copperfield's child is a boy instead of a girl, and is not seen again until David flees to her house in Dover from London. She is portrayed as affectionate towards David, and defends him and his late mother when Mr Murdstone arrives to take custody of David: she confronts the man and rebukes him for his abuse of David and his mother, then threatens him and drives him off the premises. Universally believed to be a widow, she conceals the existence of her ne'er-do-well husband who occasionally bleeds her for money.
• Mr Chillip – A shy doctor who assists at David's birth and faces the wrath and anger of Betsey Trotwood after he informs her that Clara's baby is a boy instead of a girl. David meets this doctor each time he returns to the neighborhood of his birth. Mr Chillip, met in London when David Copperfield returns from Switzerland, tells David of the fate of Murdstone's second wife, much the same as the fate of David's mother.
• Mr Barkis – An aloof carter who declares his intention to marry Peggotty. He says to David: "Tell her, 'Barkis is willin'!' Just so." Peggotty marries him after Clara Copperfield died. He is a bit of a miser, and hides his surprisingly vast liquid wealth in a plain box labelled "Old Clothes". He bequeaths most (two-thirds) of his money to his wife, from his savings of £3,000 (equivalent to $271,000 in 2019) when he dies about ten years after the marriage. He leaves annuities for Mr Daniel Peggotty, Little Emily and David from the rest.
• Edward Murdstone – The main antagonist of the first half of the novel, he is Young David's cruel stepfather who beats him for falling behind in his studies. David reacts by biting Mr Murdstone, who then sends him to Salem House, the private school owned by his friend Mr Creakle. After David's mother dies, Mr Murdstone sends him to work in his factory in London, where he has to clean wine bottles. He appears at Betsey Trotwood's house after David runs away. Mr Murdstone appears to show signs of repentance when confronted by Copperfield's aunt about his treatment of Clara and David, but when David works at Doctor's Commons, he meets Murdstone taking out a marriage license for his next young and trusting wife.
• Jane Murdstone – Mr Murdstone's equally cruel spinster sister, who moves into the Copperfield house shortly after Mr Murdstone marries Clara Copperfield, taking over the housekeeping. She is the "Confidential Friend" of David's first wife, Dora Spenlow, and is the one who found David's letters to Dora, and creates the scene between David Copperfield and Dora's father, Mr Spenlow. Later, she rejoins her brother and his second wife in a marriage much like the one with David's mother.
• Daniel Peggotty – Peggotty's brother; a humble but generous Yarmouth fisherman who takes his nephew Ham and niece Emily into his custody after each of them has been orphaned. He welcomes David as a child when holidaying to Yarmouth with Peggotty. When Emily is older and runs away with David's friend Steerforth, he travels around the world in search of her. He eventually finds her in London, and after that, they emigrate to Australia.

• Emily (Little Em'ly) – The niece of Daniel Peggotty and his sister Clara Peggotty. She is a childhood friend of David Copperfield, who loved her in his childhood days. On the eve of her wedding to her cousin and fiancé, Ham, she abandons him for Steerforth with whom she disappears abroad for several years. After Steerforth deserts her, she does not go back home, now a fallen woman, but she does eventually go to London. With the help of Martha, her uncle finds her there, after Rosa Dartle rants at her, while David watches unseen. She accompanies her uncle to Australia.
• Ham Peggotty – The good-natured nephew of Mr Peggotty who is tall and strong, and becomes a skilled boat builder. He is the fiancé of Emily before she leaves him for Steerforth. His aunt looks after Ham once Emily is gone. When the fierce storm at sea off Yarmouth dismasts a merchant ship from the south, Ham attempts to rescue the crew, but is drowned by the ferocity of the waves before he can reach anyone. News of his death, a day before the emigration, is withheld from his family to enable them to emigrate without hesitation or remorse.
• Mrs Gummidge – The widow of Daniel Peggotty's partner, who is taken in and supported by Daniel after his partner's death. She is a self-described "lone, lorn creetur" who spends much of her time pining for "the old 'un" (her late husband). After Emily runs away with Steerforth, she renounces her self-pity and becomes Daniel and Ham's primary caretaker. She too emigrates to Australia with Daniel and Emily. In Australia, when she receives a marriage proposal, she responds by attacking the unlucky suitor with a bucket.
• Martha Endell – A young woman, once Little Emily's friend, who later gains a bad reputation; it is implied that she engages in some sexually inappropriate behaviour and is thus disgraced. She is stopped from suicide by Daniel Peggotty and David finding her so she might help them. She emigrates with the Peggotty family to Australia. There, she marries and lives happily.
• Mr Creakle – The harsh headmaster of young David's boarding school who is assisted by the one-legged Tungay. Mr Creakle is a friend of Mr Murdstone. He singles out David for extra torment on Murdstone's request, but later treats him normally when David apologises to Murdstone. With a surprising amount of delicacy, his wife breaks the news to David that his mother has died. Later, he becomes a Middlesex magistrate and is considered 'enlightened' for his day. He runs his prison by the system and is portrayed with great sarcasm, as he thinks that his model inmates, Heep and Littimer, have changed their criminal ways due to the system.
• James Steerforth – A student at Creakle's school who befriends young David, even as he takes over David's money. He is condescending of other social classes, a snob who unhesitatingly takes advantage of his younger friends and uses his mother's influence, going so far as to get Mr Mell dismissed from the school because Mell's mother lives in almshouse. Although he grows into a charming and handsome young man, he proves to be lacking in character when he seduces and later abandons Little Em'ly. He eventually drowns at Yarmouth in a fierce storm at sea, washing up on the shore after the merchant ship breaks totally apart.
• Tommy Traddles – David's friend from Salem House. Traddles is one of the few boys who does not trust Steerforth and is notable for drawing skeletons on his slate to cheer himself up with the macabre thought that his predicaments are only temporary. They meet again later and become lifelong friends. Traddles works hard but faces great obstacles because of his lack of money and connections. He succeeds in making a name and a career for himself, becoming a Judge and marrying his true love, Sophy.
• Wilkins Micawber – A melodramatic, kind-hearted gentleman who has a way with words and eternal optimism. He befriends David as a young boy in London, taking him as a lodger. Micawber suffers from financial difficulty and spends time in a debtors' prison before moving his family briefly to Plymouth. Micawber meets David again, passing by the Heep household in Canterbury when David is taking tea there. Micawber takes a position at Wickford and Heep. Thinking Micawber is weak-minded, Heep makes him an accomplice in several of his schemes, but Micawber turns the tables on his employer and is instrumental in his downfall. Micawber emigrates to Australia, where he enjoys a successful career as a sheep farmer and becomes a magistrate. He is based on Dickens's father, John Dickens, as described in § Autobiographical novel who faced similar financial problems when Dickens was a child, but never emigrated.^[7]
• Emma Micawber – Wilkins Micawber's wife and the mother of their five children. She comes from a moneyed family who disapprove of her husband, but she constantly protests that she will "never leave Micawber!"
• Mr Dick (Richard Babley) – A slightly deranged, rather childish but amiable man who lives with Betsey Trotwood; they are distant relatives. His madness is amply described; he claims to have the "trouble" of King Charles I in his head. He is fond of making gigantic kites and tries to write a "Memorial" (ie a Petition - though on what subject is never revealed) but is unable to focus and finish it. Despite his limitations, Dick is able to see issues with a certain clarity. He proves to be not only a kind and loyal friend but also demonstrates a keen emotional intelligence, particularly when he helps Dr and Mrs Strong through a marriage crisis.
• Mr Wickfield – The widowed father of Agnes Wickfield and lawyer to Betsey Trotwood. He feels guilty that, through his love, he has hurt his daughter by keeping her too close to himself. This sense of guilt leads him to drink. His apprentice Uriah Heep uses the information to lead Mr Wickfield down a slippery slope, encouraging the alcoholism and feelings of guilt, and eventually convincing him that he has committed improprieties while inebriated, and blackmailing him. He is saved by Mr Micawber, and his friends consider him to have become a better man through the experience.
• Agnes Wickfield – Mr Wickfield's mature and lovely daughter and close friend of David since he began school at Dr Strong's in Canterbury. Agnes nurtures an unrequited love for David for many years but never tells him, helping and advising him through his infatuation with, and marriage to, Dora. After David returns to England, he realises his feelings for her, and she becomes David's second wife and mother of their children.
• Uriah Heep – The main antagonist of the novel's second half, Heep serves first as clerk from age 11 or 12, at age 15 he meets Copperfield and a few years later becomes partner to Mr Wickfield. He presents himself as self-deprecating and talks of being "umble", but gradually reveals his wicked and twisted character. He gains power over Wickfield but is exposed by Wilkins Micawber and Traddles, who have gathered evidence that Uriah committed multiple acts of fraud. By forging Mr Wickfield's signature, he has misappropriated the personal wealth of the Wickfield family, together with portfolios entrusted to them by others, including funds belonging to Betsey Trotwood. He fools Wickfield into thinking he has himself committed this act while drunk, and then blackmailed him. Heep is defeated but not prosecuted. He is later imprisoned for a separate fraud on the Bank of England. He nurtures a deep hatred of David Copperfield and of many others, though in some ways he is a mirror to David, wanting to get ahead and to marry the boss's daughter.
• Mrs Heep – Uriah's mother, who is as sycophantic as her son. She has instilled in him his lifelong tactic of pretending to be subservient to achieve his goals, and even as his schemes fall apart she begs him to save himself by "being 'umble."
• Dr Strong and Annie Strong – Director and assistant of the school David attends in Canterbury. Dr Strong's main concern is to work on his dictionary, where, at the end of the novel, he has reached the letter D. The Doctor is 62 when David meets him, and married about a year to Annie, considerably younger than her husband. In this happy loving couple, each one cares more about the other than of himself. The depth of their feeling allows them to defeat the efforts of Uriah Heep in trying to break their union.
• Jack Maldon – A cousin and childhood sweetheart of Annie Strong. He continues to bear affection for her and assumes she will leave Dr Strong for him. Instead, Dr Strong helps Maldon financially and in finding a position. He is charming, and after his time in India, he ends up in London society, in a social circle with Julia Mills. They live a life that seems empty to the adult David Copperfield.
• Julia Mills – She is a friend of Dora who supports Dora's romance with David Copperfield; she moves to India when her father gets a new position. She marries a wealthy Scottish man, a "Scotch Croesus," and lives in London in the end. She thinks of little besides money.
• Mrs Markleham- Annie's mother, nicknamed "The Old Soldier" by her husband's students for her stubbornness. She tries to take pecuniary advantage of her son-in-law Dr Strong in every way possible, to Annie's sorrow.
• Mrs Steerforth – The wealthy widowed mother of James Steerforth. She dotes on her son to the point of being completely blind to his faults. When Steerforth disgraces his family and the Peggottys by running off with Em'ly, Mrs Steerforth blames Em'ly for corrupting her son, rather than accept that James has disgraced an innocent girl. The news of her son's death destroys her. She lives on, but she never recovers from the shock.
• Rosa Dartle – Steerforth's cousin, a bitter, sarcastic spinster who lives with Mrs Steerforth. She is secretly in love with Steerforth and blames others such as Emily and Steerforth's mother for corrupting him. She is described as being thin and displays a visible scar on her lip caused by Steerforth in one of his violent rages as a child.
• Francis Spenlow – A lawyer, employer of David as a proctor and the father of Dora Spenlow. He dies suddenly of a heart attack while driving his phaeton home. After his death, it is revealed that he is heavily in debt, and left no will.
• Dora Spenlow – The adorable daughter of Mr Spenlow who becomes David's first wife after a long courtship. She is described as being impractical and has many similarities to David's mother. In their first year of marriage, David learns their differences as to keeping a house in order. Dora does not learn firmness, but remains herself, affectionate with David and attached to her lapdog, Jip. She is not unaware of their differences, and asks David, whom she calls "Doady", to think of her as a "child-wife". She suffers a miscarriage, which begins a long illness from which she dies with Agnes Wickfield at her side.
• Littimer – Steerforth's obsequious valet, who is instrumental in aiding his seduction of Emily. Littimer is always polite and correct but his condescending manner intimidates David, who always feels as if Littimer is reminding him how young he is. He later winds up in prison for embezzlement, and his manners allow him to con his way to the stature of Model Prisoner in Creakle's establishment.
• Miss Mowcher – a dwarf and Steerforth's hairdresser. Though she participates in Steerforth's circle as a witty and glib gossip, she is strong against the discomfort others might feel associated with her dwarfism. She is later instrumental in Littimer's arrest.
• Mr Mell – A poor teacher at Salem House. He takes David to Salem House and is the only adult there who is kind to him. His mother lives in a workhouse, and Mell supports her with his wages. When Steerforth discovers this information from David, he uses it to get Creakle to fire Mell. Near the end of the novel, Copperfield discovers in an Australian newspaper that Mell has emigrated and is now Doctor Mell of Colonial Salem-House Grammar School, Port Middlebay, married with children.
• Sophy Crewler – One of a family of ten daughters, Sophy runs the household and takes care of all her sisters. She and Traddles are engaged to be married, but her family has made Sophy so indispensable that they do not want her to part from them with Traddles. The pair do eventually marry and settle down happily, and Sophy proves to be an invaluable aid in Traddles's legal career, while still helping her sisters.
• Mr Sharp – The chief teacher of Salem House, he has more authority than Mr Mell. He looks weak, both in health and character; his head seems to be very heavy for him; he walks on one side, and has a big nose.
• Mr Jorkins – The rarely seen partner of Mr Spenlow. Spenlow uses him as a scapegoat for any unpopular decision he chooses to make, painting Jorkins as an inflexible tyrant, but Jorkins is, in fact, a meek and timid nonentity who, when confronted, takes the same tack by blaming his inability to act on Mr Spenlow.

Autobiographical novel

Fragments of autobiography

Between 1845 and 1848, Dickens wrote fragments of autobiography excerpts of which he showed to his wife and John Forster. Then in 1855 he made an attempt at revising it. This was a failure because, as he tells his first love Maria Beadnell (now Mrs Winter), when he began dealing with his youthful love for her, "I lost courage and burned the rest".^[11][12] Paul Schlicke points out that in fact not all the pages have gone through the flames and that, as Dickens began writing David Copperfield some pages were unearthed. Proof of this is found in the eleventh chapter of the novel: "I begin Life on my own Account and don't like it", where the story of Dickens's experience at the Warren Shoe Factory are almost verbatim with the only change, "Mr Micawber" instead of "my father".^[7] John Forster also published substantial extracts relating to this period in Dickens's biography, including a paragraph devoted to Wellington House College, which corresponds with second stage of childhood recounted in the novel.^[13] Thus Dickens looks back on his painful past, already evoked by the martyrdom of Little Paul in Dombey and Son, though voiced by an omniscient narrator in that earlier novel.^[14] Until Forster published his biography of Dickens in 1872-1874, no one knew that Dickens had worked in a factory as a child, not even his wife, until Dickens wrote it down and gave the papers to Forster in 1847.^[15] The first generations of readers did not know this part of David Copperfield's story began like an incident in the author's life.

The autobiographical dimension

If David Copperfield has come to be Dickens's "darling", it is because it is the most autobiographical of all his novels.^[5] Some of the most painful episodes of his life are barely disguised; others appear indirectly, termed oblique revelations as described by Paul Davis.^[5] However, Dickens himself wrote to Forster that the book is not a pure autobiography, but "a very complicated weaving of truth and invention".^[6]

The autobiographical material

The most important autobiographical material concerns the months that Dickens, still a child, spent at the Warren factory, his diligence with his first love, Maria Beadnell (see Catherine Dickens and Ellen Ternan) finally his career as a journalist and writer. As pointed out by his biographer and friend John Forster, these episodes are essentially factual: the description of forced labor to which David is subjected at Murdstone and Grinby reproduces verbatim the autobiographical fragments entrusted to his friend; David's fascination with Dora Spenlow is similar to that inspired by the capricious Maria; the major stages of his career, from his apprenticeship at Doctors' Commons to writing his first novel, via the shorthand reporting of parliamentary procedures, also follow those of its creator.^[5]

However, this material, like the other autobiographical aspects of the novel, is not systematically reproduced as such. The cruel Mr Murdstone is very different from the real James Lamert, cousin to Dickens, being the stepson of Mrs Dickens's mother's sister, who lived with the family in Chatham and Camden Town, and who had found for the young Charles the place of tagger in the shoe factory he managed for his brother-in-law George.^[16] The end of this episode looks nothing like what happens in the novel; in reality, contrary to the desire of his mother that he continues to work, it is his father who took him out of the warehouse to send him to school. Contrary to Charles's frustrated love for Maria Beadnell, who pushed him back in front of his parents' opposition, David, in the novel, marries Dora Spenlow and, with satisfaction ex post facto, writes Paul Davis, virtually "kills" the recalcitrant stepfather.^[5] Finally, David's literary career seems less agitated than that of Dickens, and his results are much less spectacular. David's natural modesty alone does not explain all these changes; Paul Davis expresses the opinion that Dickens recounts his life as he would have liked it, and along with "conscious artistry", Dickens knows how to borrow data, integrate them to his original purpose and transform them according to the novelistic necessities, so that "In the end, Copperfield is David's autobiography, not Dickens's".^[5]

Sources and context

Dickens's personal past

David Copperfield is the contemporary of two major memory-based works, William Wordsworth's The Prelude (1850),^{[N 3]} an autobiographical poem about the formative experiences of his youth, and Tennyson's In Memoriam (1850) which eulogises the memory of his friend, Arthur Hallam.^[17] On the one hand, there's Wordsworth's romantic questioning on the personal development of the individual, on the other hand, there is Tennyson's Victorian confrontation with change and doubt. According to Andrew Sanders, David Copperfield reflects both types of response, which give this novel the privileged position of representing the hinge of the century.^[18]

The intensely personal memories of Dickens are, according to Paul Schlicke, remarkably transmuted into fiction.^[17] The experience Dickens lived, as the son of a brazen impenitent, is celebrated through the comic figure of Wilkins Micawber. Dickens's youthful passion for Maria Beadnell resurfaces with tenderness, in the form of David's impractical marriage with Dora Spenlow. And Dickens's decision to make David a novelist emphasises how he used this book to re-invent himself as a man and artist: "The world would not take another Pickwick from me, but we can be cheerful and merry, and with a little more purpose in us".^[19] In fact, if the preoccupation with the adventures of an individualized hero, associated with a parade of comic or grotesque characters, looks back to Dickens's earlier novels, the interest in personal development, the pessimistic atmosphere, and the complex structure of Copperfield foreshadows the novels to come.^[17]

Contemporaneous novels

In 1847, Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë's intense first-person narrative, was acclaimed as soon as it was published. Unlike Thackeray, who adored it, Dickens claims years later to have never read it.^[20] True or false, he had encountered Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton a novel that called for understanding and sympathy in a class-eaten society^[21] Thackeray's Pendennis was serialised at the same time as David Copperfield, and it depicts its hero's personal and social journey from the countryside to the city. A rivalry existed between these two major writers, though it preoccupied Thackeray more than Dickens. But the most direct literary influence is "obviously Carlyle"^[22] who, in a lecture given in 1840, the year of his meeting with Dickens, on "On Heroes, Hero-Worship", and "the Heroic in History",^[23] claims that the most important modern character is "the hero as a man of letters".^[18] And this is David's destiny, through personal experiences, perseverance and seriousness.^[22]

Development of the novel

First inspirations

On 7 January 1849, Dickens visited Norfolk county at Norwich and Yarmouth, with two close friends, John Leech (1817-1864) and Mark Lemon (1809-1870).^[24] Leech was an illustrator at Punch, a satirical magazine, and the first illustrator for A Christmas Carol by Dickens in 1843. Lemon was a founding editor of the same Punch, and soon a contributor to Household Words, the weekly magazine Dickens was starting up; he co-authored Mr Nightingale's Diary, a farce, with Dickens in 1851.^[25][26] The two cities, especially the second, became important in the novel, and Dickens informed Forster that Yarmouth seemed to him to be "the strangest place in the world" and that he would "certainly try my hand at it".^[27] During a walk in the vicinity of Yarmouth, Dickens noticed a sign indicating the small locality of Blunderston, which became in his novel the village of "Blunderstone" where David is born and spends his childhood.^[14]

A week after his arrival in Yarmouth, his sixth son, Henry Fielding Dickens, was named after Henry Fielding, his favorite past author. Per Forster, Dickens refers to Fielding "as a kind of homage to the novel he was about to write".^[28]

As always with Dickens, when a writing project began, he was agitated, melancholy, "even deeper than the customary birth pangs of other novels";^[28] as always, he hesitated about the title, and his working notes contain seventeen variants, "Charles Copperfield" included.^[14] After several attempts, he stopped on "The Copperfield Survey of the World as it Rolled", a title that he retained until 19 April.^[29] When Forster pointed out that his hero, now called David, has his own initials transposed, Dickens was intrigued and declared that this was a manifestation of his fate.^[28] However, he is not yet sure of his pen: "Though I know what I want to do, I am lumbering like a train wagon",^[30] he told Forster.

No general plan, but an inspired novel

Contrary to the method previously used for Dombey and Son, Dickens did not elaborate an overall plan and often wrote the summary of a chapter after completing it. Four character names were found at the last moment: Traddles, Barkis, Creakle and Steerforth;^[31] the profession of David remains uncertain until the eighth issue (printed in December 1849, containing Chapters 22–24, in which David chooses to be trained as a proctor); and Paul Schlicke notes that the future of Dora was still not determined on 17 May 1850 (when 37 chapters had been published in the first 12 monthly instalments). Other major aspects of the novel, however, were immediately fixed, such as David's meeting with Aunt Betsey, Emily's fall or Agnes's role as the "real" heroine of the story.^[9]

Once launched, Dickens becomes "quite confident".^[32] The most difficult thing was to insert "what I know so well", his experience at the Warren factory; once the threads were woven, however, the truth mixed with fiction, he exulted and congratulated himself in a letter to Forster ^[33] From now on, he wrote in this letter, the story "bore him irresistibly along". Never, it seems, was he in the grip of failures of inspiration, so "ardent [is his] sympathy with the creatures of the fancy which always made real to him their sufferings or sorrows."^[28]

Changes in detail occur during the composition: on 22 August 1849, while staying on the Isle of Wight for a family vacation, he changed on the advice of Forster, the theme of the obsession of Mr Dick, a secondary character in the novel. This theme was originally "a bull in a china shop" and became "King Charles's head" in a nod to the bicentenary of the execution of Charles I of England.^{[N 4][9]}

Last incidents in the writing

Although plunged into the writing of his novel, Dickens set out to create a new journal, Household Words,^[34] the first issue of which appeared on 31 March 1850. This daunting task, however, did not seem to slow down the writing of David Copperfield: I am "busy as a bee", he writes happily to the actor William Macready.^[35]

A serious incident occurred in December: Mrs Jane Seymour Hill, chiropractor to Mrs Dickens,^[36] raised the threat of prosecution, because she recognised herself in the portrait of Miss Mowcher; Dickens did not do badly,^[37] gradually modifying the psychology of the character by making her less of a caricature and, at the very end of the novel, by making her a friend of the protagonist, whereas at the beginning she served rather contrary purposes.^[36] This was, writes Harry Stone, "the only major departure from his original plans."^[38]

His third daughter was born on 16 August 1850, called Dora Annie Dickens, the same name as his character's first wife. The baby died nine months later after the last serial was issued and the book was published.^[9]

Dickens marked the end of his manuscript on 21 October 1850^[9] and felt both torn and happy like every time he finished a novel: "Oh, my dear Forster, if I were to say half of what Copperfield makes me feel to-night, how strangely, even to you, I should be turned inside out! I seem to be sending some part of myself into the Shadowy World."^[39][9]

At first glance, the work is modeled in the loose and somewhat disjointed way of "personal histories" that was very popular in the United Kingdom of the 18th century;^{[N 2]} but in reality, David Copperfield is a carefully structured and unified novel. It begins, like other novels by Dickens, with a rather bleak painting of the conditions of childhood in Victorian England, notoriously when the troublesome children are parked in infamous boarding schools, then he strives to trace the slow social and intimate ascent of a young man who, painfully providing for the needs of his good aunt while continuing his studies, ends up becoming a writer: the story, writes Paul Davis, of "a Victorian everyman seeking self-understanding".^[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Copperfield