Week 4: Copperfield and the 'Autobiographical Fragment'

Today I want to discuss the autobiographical aspects of David Copperfield; and to that end I've given you the 'Autobiographical Fragment' that John Forster published in his Life of Dickens (1870-71). Both the fragment and the whole life (well worth reading) are available in many locations online: the former here, the latter here for instance.

There's also a good deal of criticism on the Autobiogaphical aspect of Dickens's novel. One of the best, I think, is Jean Ferguson Carr's 'Dickens and Autobiography: a Wild Beast and its Keeper' ELH 52:2 (Summer 1985), 447-69.

Also of interest is Barbara Gelpi's 'The Innocent I: Dickens' Influence on Victorian Autobiography' (in Jerome Buckley, The Worlds of Victorian Fiction, Harvard University Press, 1975).

If you're interested in the actual biographical context out of which Dickens wrote this novel, then Graham Storey and K. J. Fielding's edition of The Letters of Charles Dickens, Volume Five: 1847-1849 is absolutely invaluable. You'll find a copy of this in the library; and here's a review of that monument of Dickensian scholarship.

See also Annette R. Federico 'David Copperfield and the Pursuit of Happiness', Victorian Studies, Vol. 46, No. 1 (Autumn, 2003), pp. 69-95.