David Copperfield

"Of all my books," says Charles Dickens in his preface to this immortal novel, "I like this the best. . . . Like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favorite child. And his name is David Copperfield." When "David Copperfield' appeared in 1850, after "Dombey and Son" and before "Bleak House," it became so popular that its only rival was "Pickwick." Beneath the fiction lies much of the...