David Copperfield is a novel by Charles Dickens. It was published as a monthly serial between May 1849 and November 1850, then republished in 1850 as a book. It tells the story of David Copperfield from his birth, through his turbulent childhood and young adulthood, to contented middle age. It has been adapted several times for film and television, most recently in a 1999 two-parter for the BBC (starring Maggie Smith and featuring a ten-year-old, pre-Harry Potter Daniel Radcliffe in his first television role).
The key moment
One of the key characters is Mr Micawber, David's landlord. Micawber is known for the following maxim, much beloved of personal-finance writers: "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."(£20 in 1850 is the equivalent of £2,000 today.)The unfortunate Micawber fails to take his own advice, trusting instead that "something will turn up". His debts mount as a result, and despite his wife pawning her family heirlooms, he eventually goes bankrupt. He and his family end up sharing a cell in debtors' prison (a fate that befell Dickens's father).
The lesson for investors
Before you begin investing, it's important to get your finances under control, so you can afford to save regularly. If you have a lot of expensive debt, you should clear this before considering investing at all. Even a great investor like Warren Buffett would struggle to produce annual returns equal to the 20%-25% interest rates credit-card firms often charge their borrowers.
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The novel's villain is Uriah Heep, a financial adviser to several people, including David's aunt Betsey Trotwood. Despite presenting himself as "ever so humble", he is a fraudster who embezzles clients' money. Eventually he is exposed by Micawber, who is rewarded with enough money to fund a fresh start in Australia. Heep is forced to return his ill-gotten gains and ends up in jail for an unrelated fraud. His behaviour underlines the point that it's a good idea to scrutinise what your fund manager and advisers are doing, hang up on cold callers, and avoid any investment that sounds too good to be true.
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Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.
He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.
As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.
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