David Copperfield follows the psychological and moral growth of the narrator, detailing his adventures in his journey from infancy to maturity. David Copperfield is characterised in the book as trusting, goal-oriented, but as yet immature. The novel begins, like other novels by Dickens, with a bleak picture of childhood in Victorian England, followed by young Copperfield's slow social ascent, as he painfully provides for his aunt, while continuing his studies.

David Copperfield is also an autobiographical novel, a very complicated weaving of truth and invention with events following Dickens's own life. Of the books he wrote, it was his favourite. Called "the triumph of the art of Dickens," it marks a turning point in his work, separating the novels of youth and those of maturity. The novel has a primary theme of growth and change, but Dickens also satirises many aspects of Victorian life. These include the plight of prostitutes, the status of women in marriage, class structure, the criminal justice system, the quality of schools and the employment of children in factories.