David Copperfield (1935 film) David Copperfield (1935 film) David Copperfield is a 1935 American film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer based upon the Charles Dickens novel "The Personal History, Adventures, Experience, & Observation of David Copperfield the Younger". A number of characters and incidents from the novel were omitted – notably David's time at Salem House boarding school, although one character he met at Salem House (Steerforth) was retained for the film as a head boy at the school David attended after his aunt Betsey Trotwood gained custody of him. The story was adapted by Hugh Walpole from the Dickens novel, and the film was directed
Charles Dickens stated that reading Dickens, especially "A Christmas Carol", was one of the things that was keeping him from committing suicide. Oscar Wilde generally disparaged his depiction of character, while admiring his gift for caricature. His late contemporary William Wordsworth, by then Poet laureate, thought him a "very talkative, vulgar young person", adding he had not read a line of his work; Dickens in return thought Wordsworth "a dreadful Old Ass". Henry James denied him a premier position, calling him "the greatest of superficial novelists": Dickens failed to endow his characters with psychological depth and the novels, "loose baggy monsters", betrayed