PREFACE TO THE CHARLES DICKENS EDITION

I REMARKED in the original Preface to this Book, that I did not

find it easy to get sufficiently far away from it, in the first

sensations of having finished it, to refer to it with the composure

which this formal heading would seem to require. My interest in it

was so recent and strong, and my mind was so divided between

pleasure and regret - pleasure in the achievement of a long design,

regret in the separation from many companions - that I was in

danger of wearying the reader with personal confidences and private

emotions.

Besides which, all that I could have said of the Story to any

purpose, I had endeavoured to say in it.

It would concern the reader little, perhaps, to know how

sorrowfully the pen is laid down at the close of a two-years'

imaginative task; or how an Author feels as if he were dismissing

some portion of himself into the shadowy world, when a crowd of the

creatures of his brain are going from him for ever. Yet, I had

nothing else to tell; unless, indeed, I were to confess (which

might be of less moment still), that no one can ever believe this

Narrative, in the reading, more than I believed it in the writing.

So true are these avowals at the present day, that I can now only

take the reader into one confidence more. Of all my books, I like

this the best. It will be easily believed that I am a fond parent

to every child of my fancy, and that no one can ever love that

family as dearly as I love them. But, like many fond parents, I

have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And his name is

DAVID COPPERFIELD.

1869

THE PERSONAL HISTORY AND

EXPERIENCE OF

DAVID COPPERFIELD THE YOUNGER

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