Chapter 0
DAVID COPPERFIELD PREFACES. PREFACE TO THE 1850 EDITION. I do not find it easy to get sufficiently far away from this book and 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 is so recent and strong, and my mind is so divided between
pleasure and regret, pleasure in the achievement of a long design, regret in the separation from many companions, that I am in danger of wearying the reader whom I love with personal confidences and private emotions, beside which all that I could say of the story to any purpose I have 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 creatures of his brain are going from him for ever. Yet I have 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 have believed it in the writing. Instead of looking back, therefore, I will look forward. I cannot close this volume more agreeably to myself than with a hopeful
glance towards the time when I shall again put forth my two green leaves once a month, and with a faithful remembrance of the genial sun and showers that have fallen on these leaves of David Copperfield and made me happy. London, October, 1850 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 so 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, beside 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, and 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 believes 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 the 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. End of Prefaces
