214-489: David Copperfield is a novel by English author Charles Dickens , narrated by the eponymous David Copperfield, detailing his adventures in his journey from infancy to maturity. As such, it is typically categorized in the bildungsroman genre. It was published as a serial in 1849 and 1850 and then as a book in 1850. David Copperfield is also a partially autobiographical novel : "a very complicated weaving of truth and invention", with events following Dickens's own life. Of
428-471: A market town . During the Hundred Years' War a French attack in 1340 burned a manor house and took some prisoners, but failed to get into the town. In 1403 the town was burned by Breton raiders . On 12 November 1439 the market town of Sutton was incorporated as a borough and formally renamed Plymouth, with a subsequent charter the following year formalising its boundaries. It was the first time
642-838: 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 Dr 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-acquainted with David, 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
856-802: A travelogue , American Notes for General Circulation . In Notes , Dickens includes a powerful condemnation of slavery which he had attacked as early as The Pickwick Papers , correlating the emancipation of the poor in England with the abolition of slavery abroad citing newspaper accounts of runaway slaves disfigured by their masters. In spite of the abolitionist sentiments gleaned from his trip to America, some modern commentators have pointed out inconsistencies in Dickens's views on racial inequality. For instance, he has been criticised for his subsequent acquiescence in Governor Eyre 's harsh crackdown during
1070-484: A 'northern corridor' including Derriford and the vacant airfield site at Roborough ; and an 'eastern corridor' including major new settlements at Sherford and Langage . Plymouth is categorized as a Small-Port City using the Southampton System for port-city classification. Plymouth has a moderated temperate oceanic climate ( Köppen Cfb ) which is wetter and milder than the rest of England. This means
1284-518: A beached barge, with his adopted niece and nephew 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 discovers his mother has married and is immediately given good reason to dislike his stepfather, Murdstone, who believes exclusively in stern, harsh methods of parenting, calling it "firmness". David has similar feelings for Murdstone's sister Jane, who moves into
1498-473: A bleak picture of childhood in Victorian England , followed by young Copperfield's slow social ascent, as he painfully provides for his aunt, while continuing his studies. Dickens wrote without an outline, unlike his previous novel, Dombey and Son . Some aspects of the story were fixed in his mind from the start, but others were undecided until the serial publications were underway. The novel has
1712-453: A bonus, the news of David's "least child", which implies that there have been other children between him and eldest child Agnes of whom the reader has never heard by name. So also goes the story of Dan Peggotty relating the sad tale of his niece. The four chapters called "Retrospect" (Chapter 18: "A Retrospect", Chapter 43: "Another Retrospect", Chapter 53: "Another Retrospect" and Chapter 64: "A Last Retrospect") are placed at strategic moments of
1926-521: A boot-blacking factory when his father John was incarcerated in a debtors' prison . After three years, he returned to school before beginning his literary career as a journalist. Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years; wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and nonfiction articles; lectured and performed readings extensively; was an indefatigable letter writer; and campaigned vigorously for children's rights , education and other social reforms. Dickens's literary success began with
2140-472: A borough charter had been issued by parliament rather than directly from the monarch. In the late fifteenth century, Plymouth Castle , a "castle quadrate", was constructed close to the area now known as The Barbican; it included four round towers, one at each corner, as featured on the city coat of arms. The castle served to protect Sutton Pool , which is where the fleet was based in Plymouth prior to
2354-456: A brief illness in 1837. Unusually for Dickens, as a consequence of his shock, he stopped working, and he and Catherine stayed at a little farm on Hampstead Heath for a fortnight. Dickens idealised Mary; the character he fashioned after her, Rose Maylie , he found he could not now kill, as he had planned, in his fiction, and, according to Ackroyd, he drew on memories of her for his later descriptions of Little Nell and Florence Dombey. His grief
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#17327733529002568-409: 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. This was, writes Harry Stone, "the only major departure from his original plans". 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
2782-747: A clerk in the Navy Pay Office afforded him a few years of private education, first at a dame school and then at a school run by William Giles, a dissenter , in Chatham. This period came to an end in June 1822, when John Dickens was recalled to Navy Pay Office headquarters at Somerset House and the family (except for Charles, who stayed behind to finish his final term at school) moved to Camden Town in London. The family had left Kent amidst rapidly mounting debts and, living beyond his means, John Dickens
2996-491: A complete ascendancy over the aging and alcoholic Wickfield, to Agnes's great sorrow. Heep, as he maliciously confides to David, 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
3210-399: A daughter named after his great-aunt, Betsey Trotwood. 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
3424-411: A destroyed city centre, but Abercrombie also took the opportunity to lay out a whole hierarchy of settlements across the city of communities, neighbourhoods and districts. Central to this was a revision of transport infrastructure that prioritised the position of the railway as a gateway to the city centre and provided in the long-term for a dual carriageway road by-pass that only finally came into being in
3638-467: A direction and then a meaning, whereas, from day to day, existence has been lived as a cluster of shapeless perceptions requiring an immediate adaptation, that captures at best in the novel the use of the historical present generally adopted by Dickens. It is a succession of autonomous moments which do not end up amalgamating in a coherent whole and that connect the tenuous thread of the "I" recognizing each other. In this reconstruction, one part of truth and
3852-549: A factory as a child, not even his wife, until Dickens wrote it down and gave the papers to Forster in 1847. The first generations of readers did not know this part of David Copperfield's story began like an incident in the author's life. If David Copperfield has come to be Dickens's "darling", it is because it is the most autobiographical of all his novels. Some of the most painful episodes of his life are barely disguised; others appear indirectly, termed "oblique revelations" by Paul Davis. However, Dickens himself wrote to Forster that
4066-558: A favoured location when the Azores High pressure area extends north-eastwards towards the UK, particularly in summer. Coastal areas have average annual sunshine totals over 1,600 hours. Owing to its geographic location, rainfall tends to be associated with Atlantic depressions or with convection and is more frequent and heavier than in London and southeast England. The Atlantic depressions are more vigorous in autumn and winter and most of
4280-798: A few alterations and embellishments", as "Mrs Pipchin" in Dombey and Son . Later, he lived in a back-attic in the house of an agent for the Insolvent Court , Archibald Russell, "a fat, good-natured, kind old gentleman ... with a quiet old wife" and lame son, in Lant Street in Southwark. They provided the inspiration for the Garlands in The Old Curiosity Shop . On Sundays—with his sister Frances , free from her studies at
4494-581: A freelance reporter. A distant relative, Thomas Charlton, was a freelance reporter at Doctors' Commons and Dickens was able to share his box there to report the legal proceedings for nearly four years. In 1830, Dickens met his first love, Maria Beadnell, thought to have been the model for the character Dora in David Copperfield . Maria's parents disapproved of the courtship and ended the relationship by sending her to school in Paris. In 1832, at
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#17327733529004708-525: A friendship with William Harrison Ainsworth , the author of the highwayman novel Rookwood (1834), whose bachelor salon in Harrow Road had become the meeting place for a set that included Daniel Maclise , Benjamin Disraeli , Edward Bulwer-Lytton and George Cruikshank . All these became his friends and collaborators, with the exception of Disraeli, and he met his first publisher, John Macrone, at
4922-460: A good school: "Much of the haphazard, desultory teaching, poor discipline punctuated by the headmaster's sadistic brutality, the seedy ushers and general run-down atmosphere, are embodied in Mr Creakle's Establishment in David Copperfield ." Dickens worked at the law office of Ellis and Blackmore, attorneys, of Holborn Court, Gray's Inn , as a junior clerk from May 1827 to November 1828. He
5136-488: A home for the redemption of fallen women of the working class. Coutts envisioned a home that would replace the punitive regimes of existing institutions with a reformative environment conducive to education and proficiency in domestic household chores. After initially resisting, Dickens eventually founded the home, named Urania Cottage , in the Lime Grove area of Shepherd's Bush , which he managed for ten years, setting
5350-562: A home of Waldorf and Nancy Astor , it was given by Lady Astor to the City of Plymouth as an official residence for future Lord Mayors and is also used today for civic hospitality, as lodgings for visiting dignitaries and High Court judges and it is also available to hire for private events. The Civic Centre municipal office building in Armada Way became a listed building in June 2007 because of its quality and period features, but has become
5564-466: A kind of homage to the novel he was about to write". As always with Dickens, when a writing project began, he was agitated, melancholic, "even deeper than the customary birth pangs of other novels"; as always, he hesitated about the title, and his working notes contain seventeen variants, "Charles Copperfield" included. After several attempts, he stopped on "The Copperfield Survey of the World as it Rolled",
5778-422: A lasting impression on Dickens and later influenced his fiction and essays, becoming the foundation of his interest in the reform of socio-economic and labour conditions, the rigours of which he believed were unfairly borne by the poor. He later wrote that he wondered "how I could have been so easily cast away at such an age". As he recalled to John Forster (from Life of Charles Dickens ): The blacking-warehouse
5992-601: A lecture given in 1840, the year of his meeting with Dickens, on "On Heroes, Hero-Worship" and "the Heroic in History", claims that the most important modern character is "the hero as a man of letters". This is David's destiny, through experience, perseverance and seriousness. On 7 January 1849, Dickens visited Norwich and Yarmouth in Norfolk , with two close friends, John Leech (1817–1864) and Mark Lemon (1809–1870). Leech
6206-477: A letter to Forster. 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." 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
6420-462: A major contributor to the journals Household Words (1850–1859) and All the Year Round (1858–1870). Both journals contained a mix of fiction and non-fiction, and dealt with aspects in the culture. For example, the latter journal included Dickens' assessment of Madame Tussauds wax museum on Baker Street, which he called "something more than an exhibition, it is an institution." In 1854, at
6634-425: A mother find her proper sphere inside the home: "I never afterwards forgot, I never shall forget, I never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being sent back." His mother's failure to request his return was a factor in his dissatisfied attitude towards women. Righteous indignation stemming from his own situation and the conditions under which working-class people lived became major themes of his works, and it
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6848-562: A noteworthy recent exception was the period of the European winter storms of 2009–10 which, in early January 2010, covered Plymouth in at least 1 inch (2.5 cm) of snow; more on higher ground. Another notable event was the 8 inches (20 cm) of snowfall between 17 and 19 December 2010 – though only 2 inches (5.1 cm) would lie at any one time due to melting. Over the 1961–1990 period, annual snowfall accumulation averaged less than 7 cm (3 in) per year. South West England has
7062-407: A novel that called for understanding and sympathy in a class-eaten society. 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 the two writers, though it preoccupied Thackeray more than Dickens. The most direct literary influence is "obviously Carlyle" who, in
7276-399: 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". If the preoccupation with the adventures of a hero, associated with a parade of comic or grotesque characters, looks back to Dickens's earlier novels, the interest in personal development,
7490-458: A paragraph devoted to Wellington House College, which corresponds with the second stage of childhood recounted in the novel. 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. Until Forster published his biography of Dickens in 1872–1874, no one knew that Dickens had worked in
7704-488: A portmanteau he inhabited long before The Economist took it up. For a writer who made his reputation crusading against the squalor of the Industrial Revolution , Dickens was a creature of capitalism; he used everything from the powerful new printing presses to the enhanced advertising revenues to the expansion of railroads to sell more books. Dickens ensured that his books were available in cheap bindings for
7918-417: A pot of ointment from an apothecary's shop. When a certain number of grosses of pots had attained this pitch of perfection, I was to paste on each a printed label, and then go on again with more pots. Two or three other boys were kept at similar duty down-stairs on similar wages. One of them came up, in a ragged apron and a paper cap, on the first Monday morning, to show me the trick of using the string and tying
8132-494: A primary theme of growth and change, but Dickens also satirises many aspects of Victorian life. These include the plight of prostitutes, the status of women in marriage, class structure, the criminal justice system, the quality of schools, and the employment of children in factories. The story follows the life of David Copperfield from childhood to maturity. David was born in Blunderstone , Suffolk, England, six months after
8346-434: A priori , Copperfield is the only viewpoint and the only voice; not enjoying the prerogatives of the third person, omnipotence, ubiquity, clairvoyance, he relates only what he witnessed or participated in: all the characters appear in his presence or, failing that, he learns through hearsay, before being subjected to his pen through the prism of his conscience, deformed by the natural deficit of his perception and accentuated by
8560-676: A pseudonym for some years. Dickens apparently adopted it from the nickname 'Moses', which he had given to his youngest brother Augustus Dickens , after a character in Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield . When pronounced by anyone with a head cold, "Moses" became "Boses"—later shortened to Boz . Dickens's own name was considered "queer" by a contemporary critic, who wrote in 1849: "Mr Dickens, as if in revenge for his own queer name, does bestow still queerer ones upon his fictitious creations." Dickens contributed to and edited journals throughout his literary career. In January 1835,
8774-549: A renewed enthusiasm for the joys of Christmas in Britain and America. The seeds for the story became planted in Dickens's mind during a trip to Manchester to witness the conditions of the manufacturing workers there. This, along with scenes he had recently witnessed at the Field Lane Ragged School , caused Dickens to resolve to "strike a sledge hammer blow" for the poor. As the idea for the story took shape and
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8988-595: A reply confirming Powell's embezzlement, but once the directors realised this information might have to be produced in court, they refused to make further disclosures. Owing to the difficulties of providing evidence in America to support his accusations, Dickens eventually made a private settlement with Powell out of court. Angela Burdett Coutts , heir to the Coutts banking fortune, approached Dickens in May 1846 about setting up
9202-403: A satire on the judicial system, helped support a reformist movement that culminated in the 1870s legal reform in England. A Tale of Two Cities (set in London and Paris) is regarded as his best-known work of historical fiction. The most famous celebrity of his era, he undertook, in response to public demand, a series of public reading tours in the later part of his career. The term Dickensian
9416-401: A serio-comic shake of his head impresses me more in the remembrance than it did in the reality." These are "sacred moments", writes Gareth Cordery, which Copperfield has carefully guarded in "the treasure chambers" of his memory, where sings "the music of time": "secret prose, that sense of a mind speaking to itself with no one there to listen". Without being Dickens, this narrator, Copperfield,
9630-696: A service-based economy since the 1990s. It maintains strong maritime connections, hosting HMNB Devonport , the largest operational naval base in Western Europe, and offering ferry links to Brittany and Spain. The city is also home to the University of Plymouth , reflecting its educational and cultural significance. Today, the city is governed locally by Plymouth City Council and is represented nationally by three Members of Parliament . Upper Palaeolithic deposits, including bones of Homo sapiens , have been found in local caves, and artefacts dating from
9844-440: A significant artistic break in Dickens's career as his novels became more serious in theme and more carefully planned than his early works. At about this time, he was made aware of a large embezzlement at the firm where his brother, Augustus , worked (John Chapman & Co). It had been carried out by Thomas Powell , a clerk, who was on friendly terms with Dickens and who had acted as mentor to Augustus when he started work. Powell
10058-490: A single county borough of Plymouth. Collectively they were referred to as " The Three Towns ". Plymouth was granted city status on 18 October 1928. Between 1439 and 1935, Plymouth had a mayor. In 1935 the city was given the right to appoint a Lord Mayor. The city's boundaries further expanded in 1967 to include the town of Plympton and the parish of Plymstock . The 1971 Local Government White Paper proposed abolishing county boroughs, which would have left Plymouth,
10272-485: A third of the council being elected each time for a four year term. The total electorate for Plymouth's Parliamentary constituencies was 190,006 in April 2019. Since May 2023 Plymouth has had a Labour majority Council. Plymouth City Council is formally twinned with: Brest , France (1963), Gdynia , Poland (1976), Novorossiysk , Russia (1990) San Sebastián , Spain (1990) and Plymouth , United States (2001). Plymouth
10486-472: A title cover simplified to The Personal History of David Copperfield . The last instalment was a double-number. On the other side of the Atlantic, John Wiley & Sons and G. P. Putnam published a monthly edition, then a two-volume book version. Whatever the borrowings from Dickens's own life, the reader knows as an essential precondition, that David Copperfield is a novel and not an autobiography ;
10700-453: A title that he retained until 19 April. 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 . He was not yet sure of his pen: "Though I know what I want to do, I am lumbering like a train wagon", he told Forster. Contrary to the method previously used for Dombey and Son , Dickens did not elaborate an overall plan and often wrote
10914-497: A town of 250,000 people, being administered from a council based at the smaller Exeter , on the other side of the county. This led to Plymouth lobbying for the creation of a Tamarside county, to include Plymouth, Torpoint , Saltash , and the rural hinterland . The campaign was not successful, and Plymouth ceased to be a county borough on 1 April 1974 with responsibility for education, social services, highways and libraries transferred to Devon County Council . All powers returned when
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#173277335290011128-505: A trip 30 miles into Illinois . During his American visit, Dickens spent a month in New York City, giving lectures, raising the question of international copyright laws and the pirating of his work in America. He persuaded a group of 25 writers, headed by Washington Irving , to sign a petition for him to take to Congress, but the press were generally hostile to this, saying that he should be grateful for his popularity and that it
11342-493: A wide range of exotic plants, palm trees, and yuccas can be cultivated. The annual mean high temperature is approximately 14 °C (57 °F). Due to the moderating effect of the sea and the south-westerly location, the climate is among the mildest of British cities, and one of the warmest UK cities in winter. The coldest month of February is similarly moderate, having mild mean minimum temperatures between 3 and 4 °C (37 and 39 °F). Snow usually falls in small amounts but
11556-422: A work called The Life of Our Lord (1846), a book about the life of Christ, written with the purpose of sharing his faith with his children and family. In a scene from David Copperfield , Dickens echoed Geoffrey Chaucer 's use of Luke 23:34 from Troilus and Criseyde (Dickens held a copy in his library), with G. K. Chesterton writing, "among the great canonical English authors, Chaucer and Dickens have
11770-420: A work with fictional events and characters – including the hero-narrator – who are creations of Dickens's imagination. The use of the first person determines the point of view: the narrator Copperfield, is a recognised writer, married to Agnes for more than ten years, who has decided to speak in public about his past life. This recreation, in itself an important act, can only be partial and also biased, since,
11984-432: Is "Doady". While striving to earn his real name once and for all, this plethora of names reflects the fluidity of Copperfield's personal and social relationships, and obscure his real identity. It is by writing his own story, and giving him his name in the title, that Copperfield can finally assert who he is. Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens ( / ˈ d ɪ k ɪ n z / ; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870)
12198-400: Is "Mas'r Davy"; en route to boarding school from Yarmouth, he appears as "Master Murdstone"; at Murdstone and Grinby, he is known as "Master Copperfield"; Mr Micawber is content with "Copperfield"; for Steerforth he is "Daisy"; he becomes "Mister Copperfield" with Uriah Heep; and "Trotwood", soon shortened to "Trot" for Aunt Betsey; Mrs Crupp deforms his name into "Mr Copperfull"; and for Dora he
12412-519: Is a Site of Special Scientific Interest , because of its geology. The bulk of the city is built upon Upper Devonian slates and shales and the headlands at the entrance to Plymouth Sound are formed of Lower Devonian slates, which can withstand the power of the sea. A band of Middle Devonian limestone runs west to east from Cremyll to Plymstock including the Hoe. Local limestone may be seen in numerous buildings, walls and pavements throughout Plymouth. To
12626-423: Is a road from which different paths leave. The road is that of David's life, the main plot; the branches are born of meetings with him and lead to several secondary intrigues taken more or less far along. Each is represented by an important figure: Mr Micawber, Steerforth, little Emily, Uriah Heep; there are side stories, that of Martha Endell, Rosa Dartle, and, along the main road, stretch some parallel paths on which
12840-790: Is arrested for debt and sent to the King's Bench Prison , and the rest of Mr. Micawber's family soon moves to the Prison too. David continues to visit regularly with the Micawbers at the Prison, and boards nearby. When Micawber's release is imminent, the Micawbers decide they will soon move to Plymouth . David realises that will leave him alone in London, where no one cares about him. He makes up his mind to run away 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
13054-486: Is in general well concealed and, according to Gareth Cordery, the most difficult to detect because mostly present by implication. To help hear his voice, he adds, it is advisable to turn to Phiz, whose illustrations bring a point of view which is not always in agreement with that of Copperfield. For example, in chapter 21, the two friends arrive by surprise at the Peggotty home, and Copperfield presents Steerforth to Emily at
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#173277335290013268-510: Is linear in appearance, as is usual in traditional first-person form. It covers the narrator's life until the day he decides to put an end to his literary endeavor. However, whole sections of his life are summarised in a few paragraphs, or sometimes just a sentence or two, indicating that three or ten years have passed, or that Dora is dead, necessary to keep the story moving along. Thus, the long stay of reflection in Switzerland which leads to
13482-573: Is the Sam Weller Bump." A publishing phenomenon, John Sutherland called The Pickwick Papers "[t]he most important single novel of the Victorian era". The unprecedented success led to numerous spin-offs and merchandise including Pickwick cigars, playing cards, china figurines, Sam Weller puzzles, Weller boot polish and joke books. The Sam Weller Bump testifies not merely to Dickens's comic genius but to his acumen as an "authorpreneur",
13696-495: Is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings, such as poor social or working conditions, or comically repulsive characters. Charles Dickens was born on 7 February 1812 at 1 Mile End Terrace (now 393 Commercial Road), Landport in Portsea Island ( Portsmouth ), Hampshire , the second of eight children of Elizabeth Dickens (née Barrow; 1789–1863) and John Dickens (1785–1851). His father
13910-416: Is very like him and often becomes his spokesperson. It adds to his point of view, directly or indirectly, that of the author, without there necessarily being total match between the two. As such, Copperfield serves as "medium", mirror and also screen, Dickens sometimes subverting his speech to get to the forefront or, on the contrary, hide behind this elegant delegate to the nimble pen. Dickens's voice, however,
14124-490: The British Empire . The latter was a way for individuals to escape some of the rigidity of British society and start anew. Some of these subjects are directly satirized, while others are worked into the novel in more complex ways by Dickens. Copperfield's path to maturity is marked by the different names assigned to him: his mother calls him "Davy"; Murdstone calls him as "Brooks of Sheffield"; for Peggotty's family, he
14338-642: The Bronze Age to the Middle Iron Age have been found at Mount Batten , showing that it was one of few principal trading ports of pre-Roman Britannia dominating continental trade with Armorica . An unidentified settlement named TAMARI OSTIA (mouth/estuaries of the Tamar) is listed in Ptolemy's Geographia and is presumed to be located in the area of the modern city. An ancient promontory fort
14552-656: The Bronze Age , evolving from a trading post at Mount Batten into the thriving market town of Sutton, which was formally re-named as Plymouth in 1439 when it was made a borough . The settlement has played a significant role in English history, notably in 1588 when an English fleet based here defeated the Spanish Armada , and in 1620 as the departure point for the Pilgrim Fathers to the New World . During
14766-735: The Corn Laws . Dickens lasted only ten weeks on the job before resigning due to a combination of exhaustion and frustration with one of the paper's co-owners. A Francophile, Dickens often holidayed in France and, in a speech delivered in Paris in 1846 in French, called the French "the first people in the universe". During his visit to Paris, Dickens met the French literati Alexandre Dumas , Victor Hugo , Eugène Scribe , Théophile Gautier , François-René de Chateaubriand and Eugène Sue . In early 1849, Dickens started to write David Copperfield . It
14980-462: The Council House on Armada Way in the city centre. There are no civil parishes in the city, which is an unparished area . The city forms part of the ceremonial county of Devon for the purposes of lieutenancy , but has been administratively independent from Devon County Council since it became a unitary authority in 1998. The first record of the existence of a settlement at Plymouth
15194-676: The English Civil War , the town was held by the Parliamentarians and was besieged between 1642 and 1646. In 1690 a dockyard was established on the River Tamar for the Royal Navy and Plymouth grew as a commercial shipping port throughout the Industrial Revolution . After absorbing nearby settlements in 1914, the borough was awarded city status in 1928. During World War II , Plymouth suffered extensive damage in
15408-585: The Modernist zoned low-density garden city model advocated by Abercrombie. By 1964 over 20,000 new homes had been built, more than 13,500 of them permanent council homes and 853 built by the Admiralty . Plymouth is home to 28 parks with an average size of 45,638 square metres (491,240 sq ft). Its largest park is Central Park , with other sizeable green spaces including Victoria Park , Freedom Fields Park , Alexandra Park, Devonport Park and
15622-618: The Morning Chronicle launched an evening edition, under the editorship of the Chronicle ' s music critic, George Hogarth . Hogarth invited him to contribute Street Sketches and Dickens became a regular visitor to his Fulham house—excited by Hogarth's friendship with Walter Scott (whom Dickens greatly admired) and enjoying the company of Hogarth's three daughters: Georgina, Mary and 19-year-old Catherine. Dickens made rapid progress both professionally and socially. He began
15836-554: The Plymouth Blitz , leading to post-war rebuilding that significantly shaped its modern appearance. A further expansion of its boundaries in 1967 contributed to its current status as the 30th-most populous built-up area in the UK and the second-largest city in the South West after Bristol , with a population in 2022 of 266,862. Plymouth's economy, historically rooted in shipbuilding and seafaring, has transitioned towards
16050-524: The Plymouth Blitz . He represented the seat until 1955. After serving as Secretary of State for Education and being responsible for the 1974 Health and Safety at Work Act , he went on to become the leader of the Labour Party (1980–1983). The City of Plymouth is divided into 20 wards , 17 of which elect three councillors and the other three electing two councillors, making up a total council of 57. Elections are held three years out of every four, with
16264-608: The RMS Britannia during their first trip to the United States and Canada. At this time Georgina Hogarth , another sister of Catherine, joined the Dickens household, now living at Devonshire Terrace, Marylebone to care for the young family they had left behind. She remained with them as housekeeper, organiser, adviser and friend until Dickens's death in 1870. Dickens modelled the character of Agnes Wickfield after Georgina and Mary. He described his impressions in
16478-655: The Royal Academy of Music —he spent the day at the Marshalsea. Dickens later used the prison as a setting in Little Dorrit . To pay for his board and to help his family, Dickens was forced to leave school and work ten-hour days at Warren's Blacking Warehouse, on Hungerford Stairs, near the present Charing Cross railway station , where he earned six shillings a week pasting labels on pots of boot blacking. The strenuous and often harsh working conditions made
16692-609: The modernist high rise of the Civic Centre was constructed, an architecturally significant example of mid-twentieth century civic slab-and-tower set piece. The Plymouth City Council allowed it to fall into disrepair but it was grade II listed in 2007 by English Heritage to prevent its demolition. Post-war, Devonport Dockyard was kept busy refitting aircraft carriers such as the Ark Royal and, later, nuclear submarines . New light industrial factories were constructed in
16906-451: The 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers , a publishing phenomenon—thanks largely to the introduction of the character Sam Weller in the fourth episode—that sparked Pickwick merchandise and spin-offs. Within a few years, Dickens had become an international literary celebrity, famous for his humour, satire and keen observation of character and society. His novels, most of them published in monthly or weekly instalments, pioneered
17120-554: The 1860s Morant Bay rebellion in Jamaica and his failure to join other British progressives in condemning it. From Richmond, Virginia , Dickens returned to Washington, D.C., and started a trek westward, with brief pauses in Cincinnati and Louisville, to St. Louis, Missouri. While there, he expressed a desire to see an American prairie before returning east. A group of 13 men then set out with Dickens to visit Looking Glass Prairie,
17334-844: The 18th-century magazines Tatler and The Spectator . Dickens was perturbed by the return to power of the Tories, whom he described as "people whom, politically, I despise and abhor." He had been tempted to stand for the Liberals in Reading, but decided against it due to financial straits. He wrote three anti-Tory verse satires ("The Fine Old English Gentleman", "The Quack Doctor's Proclamation", and "Subjects for Painters") which were published in The Examiner . On 22 January 1842, Dickens and his wife arrived in Boston , Massachusetts, aboard
17548-444: The 1980s (forty years after being planned). The plan is the subject of Jill Craigie 's documentary The Way We Live (1946). By 1964 over 20,000 new homes had been built, transforming the dense overcrowded and unsanitary slums of the pre-war city into a low density, dispersed suburbia. Most of the city centre shops had been destroyed and those that remained were cleared to enable a zoned reconstruction according to his plan. In 1962
17762-657: The 20th century. During the First World War , Plymouth was the port of entry for many troops from around the Empire . It was developed as a facility for the manufacture of munitions . Although major units of the Royal Navy moved to the safety of Scapa Flow , Devonport was an important base for escort vessels and repairs. Flying boats operated from Mount Batten. During the Second World War, Devonport
17976-574: The Antipodes; so many false surprises for the narrator who needs them to complete each person's personal story. As such, the epilogue that represents the last chapter (Ch 64) is a model of the genre, a systematic review, presumably inspired by his memory, without true connection. There is the desire to finish with each one, with forced exclamations and ecstatic observations, scrolling through the lives of those who are frozen in time: Dick with his "Memorial" and his kite, Dr Strong and his dictionary, and as
18190-654: The Athenaeum, the Theatre Royal and Royal Hotel, and much of Union Street . Local chemist William Cookworthy established his short-lived Plymouth Porcelain venture in 1768 to exploit the deposits of china clay that he had discovered in Cornwall. He was acquainted with engineer John Smeaton , the builder of the third Eddystone Lighthouse . The 1-mile-long (2 km) Breakwater in Plymouth Sound
18404-695: The Catholic Church as "that curse upon the world." Dickens also rejected the Evangelical conviction that the Bible was the infallible word of God. His ideas on Biblical interpretation were similar to the Liberal Anglican Arthur Penrhyn Stanley 's doctrine of " progressive revelation ". Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky referred to Dickens as "that great Christian writer". In December 1845, Dickens took up
18618-690: The Collected Farces of Elizabeth Inchbald . At the age of seven, he first saw Joseph Grimaldi —the father of modern clowning —perform at the Star Theatre in Rochester , Kent. He later imitated Grimaldi's clowning on several occasions, and would also edit the Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi . He retained poignant memories of childhood, helped by an excellent memory of people and events, which he used in his writing. His father's brief work as
18832-511: The Crown . Mount Batten tower also dates from around this time. Throughout the 17th century, Plymouth had gradually lost its pre-eminence as a trading port. By the mid-17th century, commodities manufactured elsewhere in England cost too much to transport to Plymouth, and the city had no means of processing sugar or tobacco imports, major products from the colonies. Local sailors turning to piracy such as Henry Every became infamous, celebrated in
19046-426: The Hoe. Central Park is the home of Plymouth Argyle Football Club and a number of other leisure facilities. The Plymouth Plan 2019–2034 was published May 2019 and sets the direction for future development with a new spatial strategy which reinforces links with the wider region in west Devon and east Cornwall in its Joint Local Plan and identifies three development areas within the city: the City centre and waterfront;
19260-603: The Hoe. This location was further strengthened by the building of a fort (later known as Drake's Fort) in 1596; it was the site of the Citadel , established in the 1660s (see below). During the 16th century, locally produced wool was the major export commodity. Plymouth was the home port for successful maritime traders, among them Sir John Hawkins , who led England's first foray into the Atlantic slave trade , as well as Sir Francis Drake , Mayor of Plymouth in 1581–2. Crews for
19474-479: The London play The Successful Pyrate . It played a part in the Atlantic slave trade during the early 18th century, although it was relatively small. In the nearby parish of Stoke Damerel the first dockyard, HMNB Devonport , opened in 1690 on the eastern bank of the River Tamar . Further docks were built here in 1727, 1762 and 1793. The settlement that developed here was called "Dock" or "Plymouth Dock" at
19688-652: The Plymothians at Freedom Fields Park. The civil war ended as a Parliamentary win, but monarchy was restored by King Charles II in 1660, who imprisoned many of the Parliamentary heroes on Drake's Island . Construction of the Royal Citadel began in 1665, after the Restoration ; it was armed with cannon facing both out to sea and into the town, rumoured to be a reminder to residents not to oppose
19902-550: The Riots of 'Eighty , as part of the Master Humphrey's Clock series (1840–41), were all published in monthly instalments before being made into books. Dickens biographer Peter Ackroyd has called Barnaby Rudge "one of Dickens's most neglected, but most rewarding, novels". The poet Edgar Allan Poe read Barnaby Rudge , and the talking raven that featured in the novel inspired in part Poe's 1845 poem " The Raven ". In
20116-526: The Sound is Drake's Island which is seen from Plymouth Hoe , a flat public area on top of limestone cliffs. The Unitary Authority of Plymouth is 80 square kilometres (31 sq mi). The topography rises from sea level to a height, at Roborough , of about 509 feet (155 m) above Ordnance Datum (AOD). Geologically, Plymouth has a mixture of limestone, Devonian slate , granite and Middle Devonian limestone. Plymouth Sound, Shores and Cliffs
20330-553: The US ended with a trip to Canada—Niagara Falls, Toronto, Kingston and Montreal—where he appeared on stage in light comedies. Soon after his return to England, Dickens began work on the first of his Christmas stories, A Christmas Carol , written in 1843, which was followed by The Chimes in 1844 and The Cricket on the Hearth in 1845. Of these, A Christmas Carol was most popular and, tapping into an old tradition, did much to promote
20544-472: 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 . Although plunged into the writing of his novel, Dickens set out to create a new journal, Household Words , the first issue of which appeared on 31 March 1850. This daunting task, however, did not seem to slow down
20758-518: The age of 20, Dickens was energetic and increasingly self-confident. He enjoyed mimicry and popular entertainment, lacked a clear, specific sense of what he wanted to become, and yet knew he wanted fame. Drawn to the theatre—he became an early member of the Garrick Club —he landed an acting audition at Covent Garden, where the manager George Bartley and the actor Charles Kemble were to see him. Dickens prepared meticulously and decided to imitate
20972-466: The barrister to visit. Dr Strong and Annie Markleham get married at St Alphege church, which is also situated prominently in Canterbury. In 1847, Jane Eyre , Charlotte Brontë 's first-person narrative, was acclaimed as soon as it was published. Unlike Thackeray, who adored it, Dickens claims years later never to have read it. True or false, he had encountered Elizabeth Gaskell 's Mary Barton ,
21186-664: The behest of Sir John Franklin 's widow Lady Jane , Dickens viciously attacked Arctic explorer John Rae in Household Words for his report to the Admiralty , based on interviews with local Inuit , that the members of Franklin's lost expedition had resorted to cannibalism . These attacks would later be expanded on his 1856 play The Frozen Deep , which satirises Rae and the Inuit. Twentieth-century archaeology work in King William Island later confirmed that
21400-479: The best-selling novels of all time. Themes in Great Expectations include wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and the eventual triumph of good over evil. In early September 1860, in a field behind Gads Hill, Dickens made a bonfire of most of his correspondence; he spared only letters on business matters. Since Ellen Ternan also destroyed all of his letters to her, the extent of the affair between
21614-411: The bomb-damaged city was published; it called for demolition of the few remaining pre-War buildings in the city centre to make way for their replacement with wide, parallel, modern boulevards aligned east–west linked by a north–south avenue (Armada Way) linking the railway station with the vista of Plymouth Hoe. A peripheral road system connecting the historic Barbican on the east and Union Street to
21828-517: The book is not a pure autobiography, but "a very complicated weaving of truth and invention". 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 ), and finally his career as a journalist and writer. As pointed out by his biographer and friend John Forster, these episodes are essentially factual:
22042-446: The books he wrote, it was his favourite. Called "the triumph of the art of Dickens", it marks a turning point in his work, separating the novels of youth and those of maturity. At first glance, the work is modelled on 18th-century "personal histories" that were very popular, like Henry Fielding 's Joseph Andrews or Tom Jones , but David Copperfield is a more carefully structured work. It begins, like other novels by Dickens, with
22256-463: The borough of Plymouth", but generally known as the corporation or town council. When elected county councils were established in 1889, both Plymouth and neighbouring Devonport were considered large enough to provide their own county-level services and so they were made county boroughs , independent from Devon County Council . In 1914 the county boroughs of Plymouth and Devonport and the adjoining urban district of East Stonehouse were merged to form
22470-502: The centre of a controversy as the council planned for its demolition estimating that it could cost £40m to refurbish it, resulting in possible job losses. Plymouth lies between the River Plym to the east and the River Tamar to the west; both rivers flow into the natural harbour of Plymouth Sound . Since 1967, the unitary authority of Plymouth has included the, once independent, towns of Plympton and Plymstock which lie along
22684-671: The city became a unitary authority on 1 April 1998 under recommendations of the Banham Commission . In the Parliament of the United Kingdom , Plymouth is represented by the three constituencies of Plymouth Moor View , Plymouth Sutton and Devonport and South West Devon . Prior to Brexit in 2020 it was represented within the European Parliament as South West England . In 1919, Nancy Astor
22898-452: The comedian Charles Mathews, but ultimately he missed the audition because of a cold. Before another opportunity arose, he had set out on his career as a writer. In 1833, Dickens submitted his first story, "A Dinner at Poplar Walk", to the London periodical Monthly Magazine . His uncle William Barrow offered him a job on The Mirror of Parliament and he worked in the House of Commons for
23112-465: The comedic merits of Punch and Judy , a puppet show dominated by the anarchic clowning of Mr. Punch. In late November 1851, Dickens moved into Tavistock House where he wrote Bleak House (1852–53), Hard Times (1854) and Little Dorrit (1856). It was here that he indulged in the amateur theatricals described in Forster's Life of Charles Dickens . During this period, he worked closely with
23326-602: The couple returned to lodgings at Furnival's Inn . The first of their ten children , Charles, was born in January 1837 and a few months later the family set up home in Bloomsbury at 48 Doughty Street, London (on which Charles had a three-year lease at £80 a year) from 25 March 1837 until December 1839. Dickens's younger brother Frederick and Catherine's 17-year-old sister Mary Hogarth moved in with them. Dickens became very attached to Mary, and she died in his arms after
23540-532: The current day Barbican near the river mouth. At the time this village was called Sutton, meaning south town in Old English . The name Plym Mouth , meaning "mouth of the River Plym" was first mentioned in a Pipe Roll of 1211. Plympton Priory owned land at Sutton and secured a charter from Henry III in 1254 granting the priory the right to hold a weekly market and annual fair at Sutton, making it
23754-575: The death of his father. David spends his early years residing in a small house called the Rookery . His loving and childish mother and their kindly housekeeper, Clara Peggotty , raise him here, where they call him Davy. When he is seven-years old his mother marries Edward Murdstone without having told him they plan to marry. To get him out of the way, David is sent to visit with Peggotty's family in Yarmouth . Her brother, fisherman Mr Peggotty , lives in
23968-418: The defilement of the Peggotty home by Steerforth, which he remains forever incapable of opposing: "I believe that if I had been brought face to face with him, I could not have uttered one reproach."(chapter 32) The same treatment is given to his childhood love, his so much idealised Emily, who, once "fallen", is expelled from his consciousness to the point where his last comment, when he stealthily sees her aboard
24182-480: 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. However, this material, like
24396-563: The early members of The Ghost Club . Plymouth Plymouth ( / ˈ p l ɪ m ə θ / PLIH -məth ) is a port city and unitary authority in Devon , South West England . It is located on Devon's south coast between the rivers Plym and Tamar , about 36 miles (58 km) southwest of Exeter and 193 miles (311 km) southwest of London. It is the most populous city in Devon. Plymouth's history extends back to
24610-531: The east of the River Plym. The River Tamar forms the county boundary between Devon and Cornwall and its estuary forms the Hamoaze on which is sited Devonport Dockyard . The River Plym, which flows off Dartmoor to the north-east, forms a smaller estuary to the east of the city called Cattewater . Plymouth Sound is protected from the sea by the Plymouth Breakwater , in use since 1814. In
24824-561: The editorship of the London-based Daily News , a liberal paper through which Dickens hoped to advocate, in his own words, "the Principles of Progress and Improvement, of Education and Civil and Religious Liberty and Equal Legislation." Among the other contributors Dickens chose to write for the paper were the radical economist Thomas Hodgskin and the social reformer Douglas William Jerrold , who frequently attacked
25038-435: The entire region was the dockyard. The Three Towns conurbation of Plymouth, Stonehouse and Devonport enjoyed some prosperity during the late 18th and early 19th century and were enriched by a series of neo-classical urban developments designed by London architect John Foulston . Foulston was important for both Devonport and Plymouth and was responsible for several grand public buildings, many now destroyed, including
25252-409: The establishment of Plymouth Dockyard . In 1512, an Act of Parliament was passed to further fortify Plymouth. The work included defensive walls at the entrance to Sutton Pool (across which a chain was extended in times of danger). Defences on St Nicholas Island also date from this time, and a string of six artillery blockhouses were built, including one on Fishers Nose at the south-eastern corner of
25466-527: The event, but reserved his fury for Indians, wishing that he was the commander-in-chief in India so that he would be able to "do my utmost to exterminate the Race upon whom the stain of the late cruelties rested." In 1857, Dickens hired professional actresses for The Frozen Deep , which he and his protégé Wilkie Collins had written. Dickens fell in love with one of the actresses, Ellen Ternan , and this passion
25680-478: The expectation of this legacy, Dickens was released from prison. Under the Insolvent Debtors Act , Dickens arranged for payment of his creditors, and he and his family left the Marshalsea, for the home of Mrs Roylance. Charles's mother, Elizabeth Dickens, did not immediately support his removal from the boot-blacking warehouse. This influenced Dickens's view that a father should rule the family and
25894-550: The family moved to Norfolk Street, Fitzrovia . When Charles was four, they relocated to Sheerness and thence to Chatham , Kent, where he spent his formative years until the age of 11. His early life seems to have been idyllic, though he thought himself a "very small and not-over-particularly-taken-care-of boy". Charles spent time outdoors, but also read voraciously, including the picaresque novels of Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding , as well as Robinson Crusoe and Gil Blas . He read and re-read The Arabian Nights and
26108-459: The faults of the man and of the writer, just as the reader also learns to identify and gauge the covert interventions of the author. The discerning reader listens to the adult Copperfield and hears what this adult wants or does not want them to hear. "Even though this manuscript is intended for no eyes but mine", (chapter 42) the book exists, and the reader becomes ipso facto a " father-confessor ", knowing how to judge and even, at times, to doubt
26322-468: 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. Once launched, Dickens becomes "quite confident". 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
26536-594: The first English failed settlement attempt at Roanoke Colony in North America departed in 1587 under Sir Walter Raleigh 's and Drake's leadership; returning bearing maize, tobacco and potatoes . In 1588, according to legend, Drake insisted on completing his game of bowls on the Hoe before engaging the Spanish Armada . In 1620 the Pilgrims set sail for the New World from Plymouth, establishing Plymouth Colony –
26750-478: The first time early in 1832. He rented rooms at Furnival's Inn and worked as a political journalist, reporting on Parliamentary debates, and he travelled across Britain to cover election campaigns for the Morning Chronicle . His journalism, in the form of sketches in periodicals, formed his first collection of pieces, published in 1836: Sketches by Boz —Boz being a family nickname he employed as
26964-478: The floor. In such passages, which punctuate the retrospective chapters, the relived moment replaces the lived, the historical present seals the collapse of the original experience and the recreation of a here and now that seizes the entire field of consciousness. Sometimes this resurrected experience is more vivid than reality; so, in Chapter 41, about Traddles's face, he says: "His honest face, he looked at me with
27178-404: The following year in England and Ireland. Other works soon followed, including A Tale of Two Cities (1859) and Great Expectations (1861), which were resounding successes. Set in London and Paris, A Tale of Two Cities is his best-known work of historical fiction and includes the famous opening sentence "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." It is regularly touted as one of
27392-407: The formative experiences of his youth and Tennyson 's In Memoriam (1850) which eulogises the memory of his friend, Arthur Hallam . There is Wordsworth's romantic questioning on the personal development of the individual and 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
27606-406: The fullness of his career, tried to give "a meaning to his legend". This novel's main theme arises from the fact that it is a bildungsroman , a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood, which is common in Dickens's novels, and in which character change is extremely important. The changes involve David leaving past selves behind on
27820-595: The general discourse, which play a catch-up role more than one of meditation by the narrator, without venturing into event details. Here, the narration has disappeared, it has given way to a list, an enumeration of events. Dickens's approach, as shown in David Copperfield , does not escape what fr:Georges Gusdorf calls "the original sin of autobiography", that is to say a restructuring a posteriori and in this, paradoxically, it demonstrates its authenticity. It consists of splitting one's life into parts, choosing decisive phases, identifying an evolution and endowing them with
28034-414: The girl, her bonnet, emblem of her social aspirations and her next wanderings with Steerforth, is ready to be seized. Copperfield, dressed as a gentleman, stands in the doorway, one finger pointing at Steerforth who is taller by one head, the other measuring the gap between Ham and Dan Peggotty, as if offering Emily to his friend. Emily, meanwhile, still has her head turned to Ham but the body is withdrawn and
28248-611: 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 while rescuing shipwreck victims. Steerforth was aboard the ship and also dies. 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
28462-418: 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. After some months, David's friendly but spendthrift landlord, Wilkins Micawber ,
28676-420: The house rules, reviewing the accounts and interviewing prospective residents. Emigration and marriage were central to Dickens's agenda for the women on leaving Urania Cottage, from which it is estimated that about 100 women graduated between 1847 and 1859. As a young man, Dickens expressed a distaste for certain aspects of organised religion. In 1836, in a pamphlet titled Sunday Under Three Heads , he defended
28890-579: The house soon afterwards. Between them they tyrannise David and his poor mother, making their lives miserable. When David falls behind in his studies, Murdstone thrashes him, and David bites his hand; in consequence, he is sent away to Salem House, a boarding school, under a ruthless headmaster named Mr Creakle. There he is befriended by 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
29104-420: The house. The success of Sketches by Boz led to a proposal from publishers Chapman and Hall for Dickens to supply text to match Robert Seymour 's engraved illustrations in a monthly letterpress . Seymour committed suicide after the second instalment and Dickens, who wanted to write a connected series of sketches, hired " Phiz " to provide the engravings (which were reduced from four to two per instalment) for
29318-399: The kind of day it was! I smell the fog that hung about the place; I see the hoar-frost, ghostly, through it; I feel my rimy hair fall clammy on my cheek; I look along the dim perspective of the schoolroom, with a sputtering candle here and there to light up the foggy morning, and the breath of the boys wreathing and smoking in the raw cold as they blow upon their fingers, and rap their feet upon
29532-616: The knot. His name was Bob Fagin; and I took the liberty of using his name, long afterwards, in Oliver Twist. When the warehouse was moved to Chandos Street in the smart, busy district of Covent Garden , the boys worked in a room in which the window gave onto the street. Small audiences gathered and watched them at work—in Dickens's biographer Simon Callow 's estimation, the public display was "a new refinement added to his misery". A few months after his imprisonment, John Dickens's mother, Elizabeth Dickens, died and bequeathed him £450. On
29746-406: The look has become both challenging and provocative. Phiz brings together in a single image a whole bunch of unwritten information, which Dickens approved and probably even suggested. A third perspective is the point of view of the discerning reader who, although generally carried away by sympathy for the narrator's self-interested pleading, does not remain blissfully ignorant and ends up recognizing
29960-522: The lower orders as well as in morocco-and-gilt for people of quality; his ideal readership included everyone from the pickpockets who read Oliver Twist to Queen Victoria, who found it "exceedingly interesting". On its impact on mass culture, Nicholas Dames in The Atlantic writes, " 'Literature' is not a big enough category for Pickwick . It defined its own, a new one that we have learned to call 'entertainment'." In November 1836, Dickens accepted
30174-546: The members of the Franklin expedition resorted to cannibalism. In 1855, when Dickens's good friend and Liberal MP Austen Henry Layard formed an Administrative Reform Association to demand significant reforms of Parliament, Dickens joined and volunteered his resources in support of Layard's cause. With the exception of Lord John Russell , who was the only leading politician in whom Dickens had any faith and to whom he later dedicated A Tale of Two Cities , Dickens believed that
30388-523: The midst of all his activity during this period, there was discontent with his publishers and John Macrone was bought off, while Richard Bentley signed over all his rights in Oliver Twist . Other signs of a certain restlessness and discontent emerged; in Broadstairs he flirted with Eleanor Picken, the young fiancée of his solicitor's best friend and one night grabbed her and ran with her down to
30602-624: The most in common." Dickens disapproved of Roman Catholicism and 19th-century evangelicalism , seeing both as extremes of Christianity and likely to limit personal expression, and was critical of what he saw as the hypocrisy of religious institutions and philosophies like spiritualism , all of which he considered deviations from the true spirit of Christianity, as shown in the book he wrote for his family in 1846. While Dickens advocated equal rights for Catholics in England, he strongly disliked how individual civil liberties were often threatened in countries where Catholicism predominated and referred to
30816-472: The most significant imports to Plymouth from the Americas and Europe during the latter half of the 19th century included maize, wheat, barley, sugar cane, guano , sodium nitrate and phosphate . Aside from the dockyard in the town of Devonport, industries in Plymouth such as the gasworks, the railways and tramways, and a number of small chemical works had begun to develop in the 19th century, continuing into
31030-483: The newly zoned industrial sector, attracting rapid growth of the urban population. The army had substantially left the city by 1971, after barracks were pulled down in the 1960s, but the city remains home to 29 Commando Regiment Royal Artillery and also 42 Commando of the Royal Marines . As a unitary authority there is only one tier of local government covering Plymouth. Plymouth City Council meets at
31244-522: The next decade, in which he was to write only two novels. His first reading tour, lasting from April 1858 to February 1859, consisted of 129 appearances in 49 towns throughout England, Scotland and Ireland. Dickens's continued fascination with the theatrical world was written into the theatre scenes in Nicholas Nickleby , and he found an outlet in public readings. In 1866, he undertook a series of public readings in England and Scotland, with more
31458-577: The north and northeast of the city is the granite mass of Dartmoor; the granite was mined and exported via Plymouth. Rocks brought down the Tamar from Dartmoor include ores containing tin, copper, tungsten , lead and other minerals. There is evidence that the middle Devonian limestone belt at the south edge of Plymouth and in Plymstock was quarried at West Hoe, Cattedown and Radford. On 27 April 1944 Sir Patrick Abercrombie's Plan for Plymouth to rebuild
31672-404: The novel. David's aunt sends him to a better school than the last he attended. It is run by kind 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
31886-627: The novel; in reality, contrary to the desire of his mother that he continue 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. 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
32100-456: The novelist and playwright Wilkie Collins . In 1856, his income from writing allowed him to buy Gads Hill Place in Higham, Kent . As a child, Dickens had walked past the house and dreamed of living in it. The area was also the scene of some of the events of Shakespeare 's Henry IV, Part 1 and this literary connection pleased him. During this time Dickens was also the publisher, editor and
32314-467: 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". David Copperfield is the contemporary of two major memory-based works, William Wordsworth 's The Prelude (1850), an autobiographical poem about
32528-523: 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. The end of this episode looks nothing like what happens in
32742-512: The other children. During this period, whilst pondering a project to give public readings for his own profit, Dickens was approached through a charitable appeal by Great Ormond Street Hospital to help it survive its first major financial crisis. His "Drooping Buds" essay in Household Words earlier on 3 April 1852 was considered by the hospital's founders to have been the catalyst for the hospital's success. Dickens, whose philanthropy
32956-453: The other of poetry, the famous Dichtung und Wahrheit ( From my Life: Poetry and Truth; 1811–1833 ), autobiography of Goethe , there is the obligatory absence of objectivity, the promotion of oblivion as an integral part of memory, the ruling power of the subjectivity of time found. Thus, to use George Gusdorf's words again, David Copperfield appears as a "second reading of a man's experience", in this case, Charles Dickens, when he reached
33170-617: The peace of the world, and would be a rock in Louis Napoleon 's way," and that "I feel for Italy almost as if I were an Italian born." Dickens also published dozens of writings in Household Words supporting vaccination , including multiple laudations for vaccine pioneer Edward Jenner . Following the Indian Mutiny of 1857 , Dickens joined in the widespread criticism of the East India Company for its role in
33384-399: The people's right to pleasure, opposing a plan to prohibit games on Sundays. "Look into your churches—diminished congregations and scanty attendance. People have grown sullen and obstinate, and are becoming disgusted with the faith which condemns them to such a day as this, once in every seven. They display their feeling by staying away [from church]. Turn into the streets [on a Sunday] and mark
33598-403: The pessimistic atmosphere and the complex structure of Copperfield foreshadow other novels. Despite never living there, Dickens knew the City of Canterbury well and includes numerous references to it. David Copperfield regularly visits the cathedral services at Canterbury Cathedral, and Mr Micawber wants his son to become a chorister. The Guildhall is mentioned when David Copperfield is asked by
33812-442: The place, rise up visibly before me, as if I were there again. The counting-house was on the first floor, looking over the coal-barges and the river. There was a recess in it, in which I was to sit and work. My work was to cover the pots of paste-blacking; first with a piece of oil-paper, and then with a piece of blue paper; to tie them round with a string; and then to clip the paper close and neat, all round, until it looked as smart as
34026-540: The political aristocracy and their incompetence were the death of England. When he and Layard were accused of fomenting class conflict, Dickens replied that the classes were already in opposition and the fault was with the aristocratic class. Dickens used his pulpit in Household Words to champion the Reform Association. He also commented on foreign affairs, declaring his support for Giuseppe Garibaldi and Giuseppe Mazzini , helping raise funds for their campaigns and stating that "a united Italy would be of vast importance to
34240-478: The position of editor of Bentley's Miscellany , a position he held for three years, until he fell out with the owner. In 1836, as he finished the last instalments of The Pickwick Papers , he began writing the beginning instalments of Oliver Twist —writing as many as 90 pages a month—while continuing work on Bentley's and also writing four plays, the production of which he oversaw. Oliver Twist , published in 1838, became one of Dickens's better known stories and
34454-541: The principal partners at John Chapman & Co. Dickens immediately sent a letter to Lewis Gaylord Clark , editor of the New York literary magazine The Knickerbocker , saying that Powell was a forger and thief. Clark published the letter in the New-York Tribune and several other papers picked up on the story. Powell began proceedings to sue these publications and Clark was arrested. Dickens, realising that he had acted in haste, contacted John Chapman & Co to seek written confirmation of Powell's guilt. Dickens did receive
34668-455: The privileged position of representing the hinge of the century. The memories of Dickens are, according to Paul Schlicke, remarkably transmuted into fiction. 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. Dickens's decision to make David
34882-429: The rain which falls in those seasons in the south-west is from this source. Average annual rainfall is around 980 millimetres (39 in). November to March have the highest mean wind speeds, with June to August having the lightest winds. The predominant wind direction is from the south-west. Typically, the warmest day of the year (1971–2000) will achieve a temperature of 28.6 °C (83 °F), although in July 2022
35096-419: The reader is from time to time invited: the Traddles, Betsey Trotwood, the Peggotty family, Dan and Ham in particular, Peggotty herself remaining from start to finish intimately related to David. The different tracks do not move away from the main avenue, and when they do, a narrative "forceps" brings them together again. Hence the retrospective chapters and the ultimate recapitulation were written. The narrative
35310-425: The recognition of love for Agnes, or the lapse of time before the final chapter, are all blanks in the story . Besides the hero, this story concerns important secondary characters such as Mr Micawber or Uriah Heep, or Betsey Trotwood and Traddles, the few facts necessary for a believable story are parsimoniously distilled in the final chapters: an impromptu visit to a prison, the unexpected return of Dan Peggotty from
35524-413: The reconstruction plan for London. This initially included plans to expand the city into south east Cornwall , but these were abandoned after opposition from Cornwall County Council . Between 1951 and 1957 over 1000 homes were completed every year, mostly using innovative prefabricated systems of just three main types. The Plan for Plymouth was, on the one hand, a template for the rapid reassembly of
35738-551: The rest". 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 is told almost verbatim, with the only change, " Mr Micawber " instead of "my father". John Forster also published substantial extracts relating to this period in Dickens's biography, including
35952-531: The rigid gloom that reigns over everything around." Dickens honoured the figure of Jesus Christ . He is regarded as a professing Christian. His son, Henry Fielding Dickens , described him as someone who "possessed deep religious convictions". In the early 1840s, he had shown an interest in Unitarian Christianity and Robert Browning remarked that "Mr Dickens is an enlightened Unitarian." Professor Gary Colledge has written that he "never strayed from his attachment to popular lay Anglicanism ". Dickens authored
36166-474: The sea. He declared they were both to drown there in the "sad sea waves". She finally got free, and afterwards kept her distance. In June 1841, he precipitously set out on a two-month tour of Scotland and then, in September 1841, telegraphed Forster that he had decided to go to America. Master Humphrey's Clock was shut down, though Dickens was still keen on the idea of the weekly magazine, a form he liked, an appreciation that had begun with his childhood reading of
36380-479: The second English colony in what is now the United States. In 1625, the town Mayor estimated that African slavers captured that summer about 1,000 villagers from the area, to be sold in Africa. During the English Civil War Plymouth sided with the Parliamentarians and was besieged for almost four years by the Royalists . The last major attack by the Royalists was by Sir Richard Grenville leading thousands of soldiers towards Plymouth, but they were defeated by
36594-410: The selective filter of memory. Story teller and teacher, Copperfield does not let the facts speak for themselves, but constantly asserts himself as master of the narrative game, and he intervenes, explains, interprets and comments. His point of view is that of the adult he has become, as he expresses himself just as he is writing. At the end of his book, he feels a writer's pride to evoke "the thread[s] in
36808-569: 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 Britain, 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
37022-408: The serial publication of narrative fiction, which became the dominant Victorian mode for novel publication. Cliffhanger endings in his serial publications kept readers in suspense. The instalment format allowed Dickens to evaluate his audience's reaction, and he often modified his plot and character development based on such feedback. For example, when his wife's chiropodist expressed distress at
37236-444: The ship leaving for Australia, is "a masterpiece of narrative duplicity": far from seeing in her what she has become, a real woman, he takes refuge behind the image of a pathetic religious icon elegantly allowing him to remove his own guilt for betraying her. These underground currents are thus revealed in David's psychological struggle, Gareth Cordery concludes, currents that his narrative unconsciously attempts to disguise. The story
37450-566: The sincerity of the emotion expressed. So, when Dora dies, the reader sees that the topic of grief is dropped in a hurry, as if Copperfield had more important things to do than to indulge in sorrow: "this is not the time at which I am to enter a state of mind beneath its load of sorrow", which creates a question and an embarrassment: is Copperfield protecting himself from his confusion, or does he shed some crocodile tears for form? Copperfield also examines some of his most culpable weaknesses, such as unconscious connivance (his "own unconscious part") in
37664-551: 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". "The Personal History, Adventures, Experience, and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger, of Blunderstone Rookery" was published from 1 May 1849 to 1 November 1850 in 19 monthly one-shilling instalments, containing 32 pages of text and two illustrations by Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz") , with
37878-433: The story. The resulting story became The Pickwick Papers and, although the first few episodes were not successful, the introduction of the Cockney character Sam Weller in the fourth episode (the first to be illustrated by Phiz) marked a sharp climb in its popularity. The final instalment sold 40,000 copies. On the impact of the character, The Paris Review stated, "arguably the most historic bump in English publishing
38092-438: The summary of a chapter after completing it. Four character names were found at the last moment: Traddles, Barkis, Creakle and Steerforth; 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
38306-534: The temperature reached 33.9 °C (93.0 °F), the site record. On average, 4.25 days of the year will report a maximum temperature of 25.1 °C (77 °F) or above. During the winter half of the year, the coldest night will typically fall to −4.1 °C (25 °F) although in January 1979 the temperature fell to −8.8 °C (16 °F). Typically, 18.6 nights of the year will register an air frost. Source 3: Time and Date (dewpoints, between 1985-2015) There are three universities based in Plymouth,
38520-403: The time, and a new town, separate from Plymouth, grew up. In 1712 there were 318 men employed and by 1733 the population had grown to 3,000 people. Before the latter half of the 18th century, grain, timber and then coal were Plymouth's main imports. During this time the real source of wealth was from the neighbouring town of Plymouth Dock (renamed in 1824 to Devonport) and the major employer in
38734-426: The two remains speculative. In the 1930s, Thomas Wright recounted that Ternan had unburdened herself to a Canon Benham and gave currency to rumours they had been lovers. Dickens's daughter, Kate Perugini, stated that the two had a son who died in infancy to biographer Gladys Storey in an interview before the former's death in 1929. Storey published her account in Dickens and Daughter , though no contemporary evidence
38948-417: The very moment when her betrothal with Ham has just been announced. This sudden intrusion stops the girl as she has just jumped from Ham's arms to nestle in those of Mr Peggotty, a sign, says Cordery in passing, that the promise of marriage is as much for the uncle as for the nephew. The text remains brief but Phiz interprets, anticipates the events, denounces even the future guilt of Copperfield: all eyes are on
39162-716: The way Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield seemed to reflect her own disabilities, Dickens improved the character with positive features. His plots were carefully constructed and he often wove elements from topical events into his narratives. Masses of the illiterate poor would individually pay a halfpenny to have each new monthly episode read to them, opening up and inspiring a new class of readers. His 1843 novella A Christmas Carol remains especially popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every creative medium. Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also frequently adapted and, like many of his novels, evoke images of early Victorian London. His 1853 novel Bleak House ,
39376-407: The way to maturity. Other important themes relate especially to Dickens's social concerns, and his desire for reform. This includes the plight of so-called "fallen women", and prostitutes, as well as the attitude of middle-class society to these women; the status of women in marriage; the rigid class structure; the prison system; educational standards, and emigration to the colonies of what was becoming
39590-405: The web I have spun". Gareth Cordery writes that "if David Copperfield is the paradigmatic Bildungsroman , it is also the quintessential novel of memory" and as such, according to Angus Wilson, the equal of Marcel Proust 's In Search of Lost Time ( À la recherche du temps perdu ). The memory of the hero engages so intensely with his memories that the past seems present: How well I recollect
39804-521: The west determines the principal form of the city centre, even following pedestrianisation of the shopping centre in the late 1980s, and continues to inform the present 'Vision for Plymouth' developed by a team led by Barcelona-based architect David MacKay in 2003 which calls for revivification of the city centre with mixed-use and residential. In suburban areas, post-War prefabs had already begun to appear by 1946, and over 1,000 permanent council houses were built each year from 1951 to 1957 according to
40018-462: The work is modelled in the loose and somewhat disjointed way of "personal histories" that was very popular in the United Kingdom of the 18th century; 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
40232-459: The world" and that he would "certainly try my hand at it". 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. A week after his arrival in Yarmouth, his sixth son, Henry Fielding Dickens , was named after Henry Fielding , his favourite past author. Per Forster, Dickens refers to Fielding "as
40446-451: The writing began in earnest, Dickens became engrossed in the book. He later wrote that as the tale unfolded he "wept and laughed, and wept again" as he "walked about the black streets of London fifteen or twenty miles many a night when all sober folks had gone to bed". After living briefly in Italy (1844), Dickens travelled to Switzerland (1846), where he began work on Dombey and Son (1846–48). This and David Copperfield (1849–50) mark
40660-405: The writing of David Copperfield : I am "busy as a bee", he writes happily to the actor William Macready . A serious incident occurred in December: Mrs Jane Seymour Hill, chiropractor to Mrs Dickens , raised the threat of prosecution, because she recognised herself in the portrait of Miss Mowcher; Dickens did not do badly, gradually modifying the psychology of the character by making her less of
40874-415: Was a clerk in the Navy Pay Office and was temporarily stationed in the district. He asked Christopher Huffam, rigger to His Majesty's Navy, gentleman and head of an established firm, to act as godfather to Charles. Huffam is thought to be the inspiration for Paul Dombey, the owner of a shipping company in Dickens's novel Dombey and Son (1848). In January 1815, John Dickens was called back to London, and
41088-464: Was a gifted mimic and impersonated those around him: clients, lawyers and clerks. Captivated with London's theatre scene, he went to theatres obsessively: he claimed that for at least three years he went to the theatre every day. His favourite actor was Charles Mathews and Dickens learnt his " monopolylogues " (farces in which Mathews played every character) by heart. Then, having learned Gurney 's system of shorthand in his spare time, he left to become
41302-431: Was also an author and poet and knew many of the famous writers of the day. After further fraudulent activities, Powell fled to New York and published a book called The Living Authors of England with a chapter on Charles Dickens, who was not amused by what Powell had written. One item that seemed to have annoyed him was the assertion that he had based the character of Paul Dombey ( Dombey and Son ) on Thomas Chapman, one of
41516-491: Was an English novelist , journalist , short story writer and social critic . He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era . His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read today. Born in Portsmouth , Dickens left school at age 12 to work in
41730-486: 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 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. The two towns, especially the second, became important in the novel, and Dickens informed Forster that Yarmouth seemed to him to be "the strangest place in
41944-403: Was designed by John Rennie to protect the fleet moving in and out of Devonport; work started in 1812. Numerous technical difficulties and repeated storm damage meant that it was not completed until 1841, twenty years after Rennie's death. In the 1860s, a ring of Palmerston forts was constructed around the outskirts of Devonport, to protect the dockyard from attack from any direction. Some of
42158-465: Was elected the first-ever female member of parliament to take office in the British Houses of Parliament for the constituency of Plymouth Sutton . She was elected to the seat vacated by her husband Waldorf Astor on his elevation to the peerage. Lady Astor was a vibrantly active campaigner for her resident constituents. In 1945, Plymouth-born Michael Foot was elected Labour MP for the constituency of Plymouth Devonport which had been heavily damaged in
42372-412: Was forced by his creditors into the Marshalsea debtors' prison in Southwark , London in 1824. His wife and youngest children joined him there, as was the practice at the time. Charles, then 12 years old, boarded with Elizabeth Roylance, a family friend, at 112 College Place, Camden Town. Mrs Roylance was "a reduced impoverished old lady, long known to our family", whom Dickens later immortalised, "with
42586-405: Was given. On his death, Dickens settled an annuity on Ternan which made her financially independent. Claire Tomalin 's book The Invisible Woman argues that Ternan lived with Dickens secretly for the last 13 years of his life. The book was turned into a play, Little Nell , by Simon Gray , and a 2013 film . During the same period Dickens furthered his interest in the paranormal becoming one of
42800-402: Was granted the dignity of Lord Mayor by King George V in 1935. The position is elected each year by a group of six councillors. It is traditional that the position of the Lord Mayor alternates between the Conservative Party and the Labour Party annually and that the Lord Mayor chooses the Deputy Lord Mayor. The Lord Mayor's official residence is 3 Elliot Terrace, located on the Hoe . Once
43014-427: Was in the Domesday Book in 1086 as Sudtone (Sutton), Saxon for south farm, located at the present-day Barbican . From Saxon times, it was in the hundred of Roborough . Sutton became a market town in 1254 and a borough in 1439, when it was formally renamed Plymouth. Plymouth was reformed to become a municipal borough in 1836, governed by a corporate body officially called the "mayor, aldermen and burgesses of
43228-400: Was issued and the book was published. Dickens marked the end of his manuscript on 21 October 1850 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." At first glance,
43442-424: Was largely due to Plymouth's status as a major port. Charles Church was hit by incendiary bombs and partially destroyed in 1941 during the Blitz, but has not been demolished. It has been designated as an official permanent monument to the bombing of Plymouth during World War II. The redevelopment of the city was planned by Sir Patrick Abercrombie in his 1943 Plan for Plymouth whilst simultaneously working on
43656-463: Was located at Rame Head at the mouth of Plymouth Sound with ancient hillforts located at Lyneham Warren to the east, Boringdon Camp and Maristow Camp to the north. The settlement of Plympton , further up the River Plym than the current Plymouth, was also an early trading port. (See Plympton for the derivation of the name Plym .) As the river silted up in the early 11th century, mariners and merchants were forced to settle downriver, at
43870-506: Was mercenary to complain about his work being pirated. The popularity he gained caused a shift in his self-perception according to critic Kate Flint, who writes that he "found himself a cultural commodity, and its circulation had passed out his control", causing him to become interested in and delve into themes of public and personal personas in the next novels. She writes that he assumed a role of "influential commentator", publicly and in his fiction, evident in his next few books. His trip to
44084-399: Was not a girl. However, she takes it upon herself to raise David, despite Murdstone's attempt to regain custody of him. She encourages him to 'be as like his sister, 'Betsey Trotwood' as he can be – that is, to meet the expectations she had for the girl who was never born. David's great-aunt renames him "Trotwood Copperfield" and addresses him as "Trot", one of several names others call David in
44298-423: Was published between 1849 and 1850. In Dickens's biography, Life of Charles Dickens (1872), John Forster wrote of David Copperfield , "underneath the fiction lay something of the author's life". It was Dickens's personal favourite among his novels, as he wrote in the author's preface to the 1867 edition of the novel. His collection of letters included a correspondence with Mary Tyler, dated 6 November 1849, on
44512-659: Was so great that he was unable to meet the deadline for the June instalment of The Pickwick Papers and had to cancel the Oliver Twist instalment that month as well. The time in Hampstead was the occasion for a growing bond between Dickens and John Forster to develop; Forster soon became his unofficial business manager and the first to read his work. His success as a novelist continued. The young Queen Victoria read both Oliver Twist and The Pickwick Papers , staying up until midnight to discuss them. Nicholas Nickleby (1838–39), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840–41) and, finally, his first historical novel, Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of
44726-399: Was the first Victorian novel with a child protagonist . On 2 April 1836, after a one-year engagement, and between episodes two and three of The Pickwick Papers , Dickens married Catherine Thomson Hogarth (1815–1879), the daughter of George Hogarth, editor of the Evening Chronicle . They were married in St Luke's Church , Chelsea , London. After a brief honeymoon in Chalk in Kent,
44940-493: Was the headquarters of Western Approaches Command until 1941, and Sunderland flying boats were operated by the Royal Australian Air Force . It was an important embarkation point for US troops for D-Day . The city was heavily bombed by the Luftwaffe , in a series of 59 raids known as the Plymouth Blitz . Although the dockyards were the principal targets, much of the city centre and over 3,700 houses were completely destroyed and more than 1,000 civilians lost their lives. This
45154-402: Was the last house on the left-hand side of the way, at old Hungerford Stairs. It was a crazy, tumble-down old house, abutting of course on the river, and literally overrun with rats. Its wainscoted rooms, and its rotten floors and staircase, and the old grey rats swarming down in the cellars, and the sound of their squeaking and scuffling coming up the stairs at all times, and the dirt and decay of
45368-486: Was this unhappy period in his youth to which he alluded in his favourite, and most autobiographical, novel , David Copperfield : "I had no advice, no counsel, no encouragement, no consolation, no assistance, no support, of any kind, from anyone, that I can call to mind, as I hope to go to heaven!" Dickens was eventually sent to the Wellington House Academy in Camden Town , where he remained until March 1827, having spent about two years there. He did not consider it to be
45582-552: Was to last the rest of his life. In 1858, when Dickens was 45 and Ternan 18, divorce would have been scandalous for someone of his fame. After publicly accusing Catherine of not loving their children and suffering from "a mental disorder"—statements that disgusted his contemporaries, including Elizabeth Barrett Browning —Dickens attempted to have Catherine institutionalised . When his scheme failed, they separated. Catherine left, never to see her husband again, taking with her one child. Her sister Georgina, who stayed at Gads Hill, raised
45796-524: Was well-known, was asked by his friend, the hospital's founder Charles West , to preside over the appeal, and he threw himself into the task, heart and soul. Dickens's public readings secured sufficient funds for an endowment to put the hospital on a sound financial footing; one reading on 9 February 1858 alone raised £3,000. After separating from Catherine, Dickens undertook a series of popular and remunerative reading tours which, together with his journalism, were to absorb most of his creative energies for
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