Abstract
Composition Begun February 1849, finished October 1850. From 23 to 28 February Dickens was trying out titles and names (see below) — for him an indispensable preliminary to the business of writing. Progress at first was slow: with the first number due on 1 May, he confessed on 19 April that ‘My hand is out in the matter of Copperfield. Today and yesterday I have done nothing. Though I know what I want to do, I am lumbering on like a stage-wagon …. I am quite aground … and the long Copperfieldian perspective looks snowy and thick, this fine morning.’ Soon, however, his writing gathered momentum: halfway through the third number, he told Forster (6 June) that he felt ‘quite confident in the story’; and by 17 November he was able to tell him, ‘I am wonderfully in harness, and nothing galls or frets.’ Some of the later portions were written very rapidly — Chs 23–4, for instance, within four days. Manuscript and corrected proofs in Forster Collection.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Copyright information
© 1984 Norman Page
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Page, N. (1984). David Copperfield. In: A Dickens Companion. Macmillan Literary Companions. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06004-7_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06004-7_14
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-06006-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-06004-7
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)