Elizabeth Dickens WHO DIED SEPTEMBER 12TH 1863 AGED 73 YEARS". Charles Dickens used his mother as the source for the vain, ineffectual and verbally comic Mrs. Nickleby in his novel "Nicholas Nickleby" and for Mrs Micawber in "David Copperfield". Elizabeth Dickens Elizabeth Culliford Dickens (née Barrow; 21 December 1789 – 13 September 1863) was the wife of John Dickens and the mother of English novelist Charles Dickens. She was the source for Mrs. Nickleby in her son's novel "Nicholas Nickleby" and for Mrs Micawber in "David Copperfield". One of eight children of Mary Culliford (1771–1851) and Charles Barrow (1759–1826), Elizabeth Barrow was
Racism in the work of Charles Dickens that while Dickens later in life became far more sensitive to unethical aspects of British colonialism and came to plead mitigation of cruelties to natives, he never lost his distaste for those whose life style he regarded as "primitive". Many scholars have noted the paradox between Dickens' support for various liberal causes and his racism, nationalist chauvinism and imperialist mentality. Biographer Peter Ackroyd in his 1990 biography of Dickens (the 2nd of four books on Dickens) duly notes Dickens' sympathy for the poor, opposition to child labour, campaigns for sanitation reform, and opposition to capital punishment. He also asserts that