Online Exhibition: Character Sketches from the World of Charles Dickens
This exhibition celebrates one of the most enduring legacies of Charles Dickens's genius: the unforgettable characters he brought to life.
Peggotty is David's warmhearted, devoted nurse. Upon being introduced to her David’s Aunt Betsey inquires indignantly, “Do you mean to say child, that any human being has gone into a Christian church, and got herself named ‘Peggotty!’”
Jessie Wilcox Smith. The Children of Dickens by Samuel McChord Crothers. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925.
Mr. Peggoty is a crotchety fisherman who lives in a boat on the beach at Yarmouth with his niece Emily, who abandons him, her brother, and Mrs. Gummidge to elope with Steerforth. Steerforth ultimately leaves Emily and she emigrates with her family to Australia.
Joseph Clayton Clark,"Kyd." The Characters of Charles Dickens. London: Raphael Tuck, 1890.
Mr. Micawber provides lodging for David. Though perpetually in debt, he has this advice for David: "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."
Joseph Clayton Clark, "Kyd." The Characters of Charles Dickens. London: Raphael Tuck, 1890.
Betsey Trotwood is David's great-aunt. After David is forced to work in his stepfather's warehouse he runs away from London walking all the way to Dover to find his only living relative. Betsey takes him in and helps him get his start in life.
F. G. Lewin. The Characters from Charles Dickens. London: Chapman and Hall, 1912.
Young David describes the waiter as, "a twinkling-eyed, pimple-faced man, with his hair standing upright all over his head; and as he stood with one arm a-kimbo, holding up the glass to the light with the other hand, he looked quite friendly."
Hablot K. Browne. Original Illustration for David Copperfield, 1849.
Miss Mowcher is a dwarf hairdresser and manicurist. When Dickens first introduced her he intended her to be an accomplice in David’s friend Steerforth's plot to elope with Little Em'ly. Dickens had modeled Miss Mowcher after his wife's chiropodist, or foot doctor.
Hablot K. Browne. Original Illustration for David Copperfield, 1849.
Uriah Heep is a hypocritical law clerk who loudly proclaims his humbleness while he plots to ruin his employer. "A red-haired person —a youth of fifteen, as I take it now, but looking much older.... He had a way of writhing when he wanted to express enthusiasm, which was very ugly."
Joseph Clayton Clark, "Kyd." The Characters of Charles Dickens. London: Raphael Tuck, 1890.