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As a young, eager-to-please novelist, he had transformed his impecunious father into the whimsical and charming Mr. Micawber of “Copperfield”; after his father’s death came a more selfish and unforgiving version in “Little Dorrit.”

Could it be that, though we’ve all heard of the great Mr Micawber and Uriah Heep, our understanding of them is formed more by the accumulated memories of performances in TV and cinema?

Still, she remains a kind of bipartisan Wilkins Micawber, the optimistic clerk in“David Copperfield.”

Mr. Micawber’s formula is simple; reality is more complex.

To misquote Mr Micawber: “Something unpleasant will turn up.”