Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result…

This is Mr Micawber’s “other piece of advice” to young David, in chapter 12 of David Copperfield, on the eve of the Micawbers’ departure from London. The sums are in old British money, twenty shillings to the pound: out of twenty pounds a year, spend sixpence less and you are happy; spend sixpence more, and misery follows. Micawber then turns lyrical (“the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene”) and concludes: “you are for ever floored. As I am!” To make his example more impressive, he drinks a glass of punch “with an air of great enjoyment and satisfaction”.

David had heard a first version of the rule in chapter 11, when he visited Micawber in the King’s Bench, the prison where he was held for debt. Dickens published the novel in monthly parts in 1849 and 1850.

The formula is still quoted whenever people talk of living within their means. As for Micawber, something finally turns up: he ends the novel as a magistrate in Australia.

David Copperfield, Chapter 12 (Mr Micawber), 1850

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