David Copperfield is also an autobiographical novel a very complicated weaving of truth and invention with events following Dickens's own life Of 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.

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