David Copperfield is a 1911 American black-and-white

Black-and-white

Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...

 silent film

Silent film

A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

 based on the novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 David Copperfield

David Copperfield (novel)

The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery , commonly referred to as David Copperfield, is the eighth novel by Charles Dickens, first published as a novel in 1850. Like most of his works, it originally appeared in serial...

by Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

. It is the oldest known film adaptation of the novel.

The film was made by the Thanhouser Film Corporation

Thanhouser Company

The Thanhouser Company was one of the first motion picture studios, founded in 1909 by Edwin Thanhouser.-See also:...

, an independent company which operated in New York and later in Florida and which was founded by Edwin Thanhouser

Edwin Thanhouser

Edwin Thanhouser was an actor, businessman, and film producer, most notable as a founder of the Thanhouser Company, along with his wife Gertrude Thanhouser and brother-in-law Lloyd Lonergan.-Biography:...

. The film has been credited to Theodore Marston

Theodore Marston

Theodore Marston was an American silent film director and writer of the early silent period...

, but recent research points to George Nicholls as director. It was made in three reels and as three separate films, released in three consecutive weeks, with three different titles: The Early Life of David Copperfield, Little Em'ly and David Copperfield and The Loves of David Copperfield.

The cast included Flora Foster (David Copperfield as a boy), Ed Genung (David Copperfield as a Man), Marie Eline

Marie Eline

Marie Eline was an American silent film child actress and sister of Grace Eline, who apparently turned 111 in 2009. Nicknamed The Thanhouser Kid she began acting for the Thanhouser Company in film aged 8 and starred in exactly 100 films between 1910 and 1914.-Filmography:* Uncle Tom's Cabin ......

 (Em'ly as a Child), Florence La Badie

Florence La Badie

Florence La Badie was an American actress in the early days of the silent film era. Though little known today, she was a major star between 1911 and 1917, her career was at its height and climbing when she died unexpectedly due to injuries sustained during an automobile accident.-Early life:While...

 (Em'ly as a Woman), Mignon Anderson

Mignon Anderson

Mignon Anderson was an American silent film actress. Her career was at its peak in the 1910s.-Career:Born in Baltimore, Anderson's parents, Hallie Howard and Frank Anderson, were also actors. In 1911 she joined Thanhouser Studios in New Rochelle, New York. She was very diminutive and a blonde...

 (Dora Spenlow

Dora Spenlow

Dora Spenlow is a character in the novel David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. David falls in love with Dora, who is beautiful but foolish, and later marries her. She proves unable to cope with anything but being a child bride, and is more interested in playing with her dog, Jip, than in acting as...

), Viola Alberti (Aunt Betsey Trotwood

Betsey Trotwood

Betsey Trotwood is a fictional character from Charles Dickens' 1850 novel David Copperfield.-Role in novel:She is David's great-aunt on his father's side, and has an unfavourable view of men and boys, having been ill-used and abandoned by a worthless husband earlier in life...

), Justus D. Barnes

Justus D. Barnes

Justus D. Barnes was an American film actor, most famous for his role as an outlaw in The Great Train Robbery, a Western and the first movie with a complete narrative made. He is seen pointing his gun directly at the camera, a famous scene...

 (Ham Peggotty in part one), William Russell (Ham Peggotty in part two) and William Garwood

William Garwood

William Garwood was an American stage and film actor and director of the early silent era in the 1910s....

.