Jan 1, 2010

David Copperfield | Biography

Many scholars have noted that Charles Dickens incorporated autobiographical details in David Copperfield (1850). George H. Ford, in his article on Dickens in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, notes the similarities in manner between the author’s father, John, and Mr. Micawber. His mother, Elizabeth Barrow, would become, according to Ford, the model for a character in another of her son’s novels, Nicholas Nickleby.

Charles, one of eight children, was born in Portsmouth, England, on February 7, 1812. His early years were spent quite contentedly in small coastal...