twelve
o'clock at night
Dickens never forgot his early degradation , as it seemed to him , in the blacking warehouse at Hungerford Stairs , or quite forgave those who sent him to an occupation he so loathed . Much of `` David Copperfield '' is familiar in our mouths as household words , and Swinburne has maintained that Micawber ranks with Dick Swiveller as one of the greatest characters in all Dickens 's novels . `` Copperfield '' comes midway in the great list of works by Charles Dickens . _ I. -- My Early Childhood _ I was born -LRB- as I have been informed and believe -RRB- on a Friday , at twelve o'clock at night , at Blunderstone , in Suffolk . I was a posthumous child . My father 's eyes had been closed upon the light of this world six months when mine opened upon it . Miss Betsey Trotwood , an aunt of my father 's , and consequently a great-aunt of mine , arrived on the afternoon of the day I was born , and explained to my mother -LRB- who was very much afraid of her -RRB- that she meant to provide for her child , which was to be a girl .