Editing David Copperfield (section)

===The autobiographical dimension===
If ''David Copperfield'' has come to be Dickens's "darling", it is because it is the most autobiographical of all his novels.<ref name=Davis1999p90>{{harvnb|Davis|1999|p=90}}</ref> Some of the most painful episodes of his life are barely disguised; others appear indirectly, termed "oblique revelations" by Paul Davis.<ref name=Davis1999p90 /> However, Dickens himself wrote to Forster that the book is not a pure autobiography, but "a very complicated weaving of truth and invention".<ref name=CDLettersp515>Charles Dickens, ''Letters'', VII, page 515</ref>

==== The autobiographical material ====
The most important autobiographical material concerns the months that Dickens, still a child, spent at the Warren factory, his diligence with his first love, Maria Beadnell (see [[Catherine Dickens]] and [[Ellen Ternan]]), and finally his career as a journalist and writer. As pointed out by his biographer and friend John Forster, these episodes are essentially factual: the description of forced labour 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.<ref name=Davis1999p90 />

However, this material, like the other autobiographical aspects of the novel, is not systematically reproduced as such. The cruel Mr Murdstone is very different from the real James Lamert, cousin to Dickens, being the stepson of Mrs Dickens's mother's sister, who lived with the family in [[Chatham, Kent|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.<ref>{{harvnb|Davis|1999|p=202}}</ref> The end of this episode looks nothing like what happens in 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.<ref name=Davis1999p90 /> Finally, David's literary career seems less agitated than that of Dickens, and his results are much less spectacular. David's natural modesty alone does not explain all these changes; Paul Davis expresses the opinion that Dickens recounts his life as he would have liked it, and along with "conscious artistry", Dickens knows how to borrow data, integrate them to his original purpose and transform them according to the novelistic necessities, so that "In the end, Copperfield is David's autobiography, not Dickens's".<ref name=Davis1999p90 />