John Dickens John Dickens John Dickens (21 August 1785 – 31 March 1851) was the father of English novelist Charles Dickens and was the model for Mr Micawber in his son's semi-autobiographical novel "David Copperfield". The son of William Dickens (1719–1785) and Elizabeth Ball (1745–1824), John Dickens was a clerk in the Royal Navy Pay Office at Portsmouth in Hampshire. On 13 June 1809 at St Mary le Strand, London, he married Elizabeth Barrow, with whom he had eight children. He was later transferred to London and then to Chatham, returning to live in Camden Town in London in 1822 to work
Dickens in America but also reading other writers' travel books that Dickens himself read before sailing. These include Frances Trollope's and de Tocqueville's books. She visits the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, where the original manuscript is kept, and marvels over all the changes and corrections in Dickens's hand that cover every page. She notices that the closing paragraph of the manuscript as published originally had another sentence at the end but it has been crossed out in such a way that she can't read it. Miriam then meets with Dickens scholars and experts at the Charles Dickens Museum on Doughty Street