[1] Scholars believe that David Copperfield's childhood, career, friendships and love life were influenced by Dickens's experiences, especially his time working in a factory as a child.

David's first wife, Dora Spenlow, is believed to be based upon Maria Beadnell, whom Dickens loved in his early youth.

Clara and Peggotty are still forbidden to treat David kindly (as the Murdstones view this to be weakness) but are able to sneak occasional happy moments together.

Another term at Salem House begins and David settles into his role as a student as best he can, despite the unorganized teaching and frequent lashings.

Mr Murdstone and Jane, unwilling to care for the hated orphan, decide to send David to work in the family bottling factory.

After an unhappy year at the factory (which he refuses to describe in any detail) David runs away in hopes of finding his great-aunt Betsey Trotwood in Dover.

The rest of the novel deals with David's struggles through life and his involvement in other plotlines, including his friendship and consequent disillusionment with unworthy and self-serving Steerforth, his assistance to the destroyed Peggotty family; his concern for the Wickfield, Micawber, and Strong families as they are all being cheated and abused by Uriah Heep, and the beginning and development of his writing career.

David falls in a passionate but highly impractical love with innocent, inexperienced, and foolish Dora Spenlow, daughter of his present boss.

They later move into a house in London, along with their young children, which include at least three girls (Little Agnes, Dora, and Betsey Trotwood Copperfield) and at least two boys.