Self-Help, dodgy marriages and the siren call of Australia: David Copperfield Part 2

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In Part 2 of David Copperfield, we pick up David where we left him, sobbing at the door of Betsey Trotwood’s house in Dover. From this low, David’s life changes - he is no longer a victim, but embarks on a (very long) journey towards self-reliance, re-encountering old friends like Micawbers and Steerforth, but also new characters like Uriah Heep and the simpering Dora.

To make sense of this long, rambling journey of redemption, Sophie and Jonty reveal the influence of the emerging self-help movement on Dickens’ world-view and how his side-hustle as the director of a Home for Homeless Women inspired him to send many of the characters in David Copperfield off to Australia at the end of the book - and the inevitable happy ending this suggests.

BOOKS MENTIONED OR USED AS SOURCES:

Charles Dickens: A Life (2011) by Claire Tomalin

Self-Reliance (1841) by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Self-Help (1859) by Samuel Smiles

1848: The Revolution of the Intellectuals (1944) by Lewis Namier

Demon Copperhead (2022) by Barbara Kingsolver

Rivals (1988) by Jilly Cooper

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