David Copperfield, in full The Personal History of David Copperfield, novel by English writer Charles Dickens, published serially in 184950 and in book form in 1850. David Copperfield has always been among Dickens's most popular novels and was his own "favourite child." The work is semiautobiographical, and, although the title character differs from his creator in many ways, Dickens related early personal experiences that had meant much to him his work in a factory, his schooling and reading, and (more cursorily) his emergence from parliamentary reporting into successful novel writing.