David Copperfield is a 1913 British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 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 second-oldest known film adaptation of the novel.

The film was made by the Hepworth Manufacturing Corporation, was produced by Cecil Hepworth

Cecil Hepworth

Cecil Milton Hepworth was an English film director, producer and screenwriter. He was among the founders of the British film industry and continued making films into the 1920s....

 and was written and directed by Thomas Bentley

Thomas Bentley

Thomas Bentley was a British film director. He directed 68 films between 1912 and 1941. He directed three films in the early DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process, The Man in the Street , The Antidote , and Acci-Dental Treatment .Bentley was born in London and originally trained as an engineer,...

. In the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 it was released in August 1913, and in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 it was released on 1 December 1913. It ran at 67 minutes on seven reels.

A review of the film in The Dickensian said:

"It occupies close upon two hours to exhibit and is divided into six parts, telling the story of David's life from Blunderstone to his happy union with Agnes. Obviously the part of David is enacted by three different actors, Master Eric Desmond, Mr Len Bethel and Mr Kenneth Ware. The first-named being one of the cleverest child actors we have seen. We have no space to speak of all the characters presented. Each and all of them were Dickens' creations to the life and not mere exaggerations as is often the case.



The film not only includes all of the most prominent characters and all the necessary incidents of the book to make the story intelligible to the lay reader, but they have been enacted in the actual places in which the novelist laid them."

The cast included Reginald Sheffield

Reginald Sheffield

Reginald Sheffield was an English-born actor.He was born as Matthew Reginald Sheffield Cassan in the St. George Hanover Square District of Surrey near London, to Matthew Sheffield Cassan and Alice Mary Field...

 - billed as Eric Desmond (David Copperfield as a boy), Len Bethel (David Copperfield as a youth), Kenneth Ware (David Copperfield as a Man), Edna May (Em'ly as a Child), Amy Verity (Em'ly as a Woman), Alma Taylor

Alma Taylor

- Life :Taylor was born in London. She made her first screen appearance as a child actor in the 1907 film His Daughter's Voice. She went on to appear in more than 150 film roles, appearing in a number of larger-budget films such as Shadow of Egypt which was shot on location in Egypt in 1924. Taylor...

 (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...

), H Collins (Mr Micawber), Miss West (Mrs Micawber), Jack Hulcup (Uriah Heep

Uriah Heep

Uriah Heep is a fictional character created by Charles Dickens in his novel David Copperfield.The character is notable for his cloying humility, obsequiousness, and insincerity, making frequent references to his own "'umbleness". His name has become synonymous with being a yes man...

), Jamie Darling (Daniel Peggotty), and Cecil Mannering (Steerforth).