I'm currently reading a Jasper Fforde book. He writes comic fantasies with famous literary characters in them such as Dicken's David Copperfield. I was wondering if any copyright laws would be broken if I used some well known characters in a story.
You gotta be careful with that, eh. Not all countries have the same laws around when stuff goes public domain. Canada is life + 50 which, among other things, means James Bond (characters and such from Fleming's original stories, not anything from the movies or later authors) is technically PD up here. There's already been on anthology published of James Bond short stories by various Canadian authors. I'm guessing you're thinking older materials than that, or at least life + 70 as it is in the US.