Wilkins Micawber is a fictional character from Charles Dickens' novel David Copperfield. He was modelled on Dickens' father, John Dickens, who also ended up in a debtor's prison (the King's Bench Prison) after failing to meet the demands of his creditors. Image File history File linksMetadata Micawber. ... A fictional character is any person who appears in a work of fiction. ... Dickens redirects here. ... It has been suggested that David Copperfield (character) be merged into this article or section. ... The Kings Bench Prison was a prison situated in the Southwark area of central London, England from medieval times until its final closure in 1880. ...

His long-suffering wife, Emma, stood by him through thick and thin, despite the fact that her deceased father had to bail him out on many occasons, and his circumstances forces her to pawn all her family heirlooms. The maxims she lives by were: "I will never desert Mr. Micawber!" and "Experentia docuit (One learns by experience)". A pawnbroker offers monetary loans in exchange for an item of value to the given pawn broker. ... An heirloom in general is any old item or antique passed down from one generation to another. ...

In Hablot Knight Browne's illustrations for the first edition, he is shown wearing knee-breeches, a top hat and a monocle. His talents in other directions of art were of a very ordinary kind. ... Breeches as worn in America in the latter 18th century: Elijah Boardman by Ralph Earl, 1789. ... Duke Ellington wearing a top hat. ... The first cover of The New Yorker, 1925: a Regency dandy quizzes a butterfly A monocle is a type of corrective lens used to correct the vision in only one eye. ...

Popular Culture

His name has become synonymous with someone who lives in hopeful expectation. This has formed the basis for the "Micawber Principle", based upon his observation:

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."

The character was played by W.C. Fields in the 1935 screen classic, Personal History, Adventures, Experience, and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger. Another actor of note to have played him was Bob Hoskins, in a 1999 BBC serial. W. C. Fields (January 29, 1880 - December 25, 1946) was an American comedian and actor. ... 1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Personal History, Adventures, Experience, & Observation of David Copperfield the Younger (aka David Copperfield) is a 1935 film based upon the Charles Dickens novel. ... Bob Hoskins Robert William Bob Hoskins (born October 26, 1942) is a British actor best known for playing Cockney rough diamonds and gangsters, and for family films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988, Eddie Valiant). ... David Copperfield is a two part BBC television drama adaptation of Charles Dickens novel David Copperfield. ...

In addition, the character formed the basis of Micawber, a 2001 ITV drama series written by John Sullivan and starring David Jason in the title role. Micawber was a 2001 ITV comedy drama series starring David Jason. ... For other men with this name, see John Sullivan (disambiguation). ... David Jason in A Touch of Frost. ...

Quotations

Besides the Micawber Principle, Micawber is notable for a number of memorable quotations:

• I have no doubt I shall, please Heaven, begin to be more beforehand with the world, and to live in a perfectly new manner, if -if, in short, anything turns up. - (Chapter 11)

• Every happiness and prosperity! If, in the progress of revolving years, I could persuade myself that my blighted destiny had been a warning to you, I should feel that I had not occupied another man's place altogether in vain. - (Chapter 12)

• You HEEP of infamy! - (Chapter 52)

• I trust that the labour and hazard of an investigation -of which the smallest results have been slowly pieced together, in the pressure of arduous avocations, under grinding penurious apprehensions, at rise of morn, at dewy eve, in the shadows of night, under the watchful eye of one whom it were superfluous to call Demon, combined with the struggle of parental Poverty to turn it, when completed, to the right account, may be as the sprinkling of a few drops of sweet water on my funeral pyre. I ask no more. Let it be, in justice, merely said of me, as of a gallant and eminent Naval Hero, with whom I have no pretensions to cope, that what I have done, I did, in despite of mercenary and selfish objectives, "FOR ENGLAND, HOME AND BEAUTY." Remaining always, &c, &c, Wilkins Micawber.

• Welcome poverty!..Welcome misery, welcome houselessness, welcome hunger, rags, tempest, and beggary! Mutual confidence will sustain us to the end!

Lord Nelson Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson (September 29, 1758 – October 21, 1805) was a British admiral who won fame as a leading naval commander. ...

Quotations from the 1935 film

• Boy, as I have frequently had occasion to observe: "When the stomach is empty, the spirits are low!"

• Remember my motto "Nil Desperandum! -Never despair!"

Horace, as imagined by Anton von Werner Quintus Horatius Flaccus, (December 8, 65 BC - November 27, 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus. ...

Quotation from the BBC TV/Masterpiece Theatre production

• (featuring Simon Callow as Micawber) "I could not depart this metropolis without paying a valedictory visit to my dear friend Copperfield, in whose debt I shall forever remain (I speak metaphorically of course)!