THE PERSONAL HISTORY
OF
DAVID COPPERFIELD.

PREFACE.

I do not find it easy to get sufficiently far away from thisBook, in the first sensations of having finished it, to refer to itwith the composure which this formal heading would seem torequire. My interest in it, is so recent and strong; and mymind is so divided between pleasure and regret—pleasure inthe achievement of a long design, regret in the separationfrom many companions—that I am in danger of wearying thereader whom I love, with personal confidences, and privateemotions.

Besides which, all that I could say of the Story, to anypurpose, I have endeavoured to say in it.

It would concern the reader little, perhaps, to know, howsorrowfully the pen is laid down at the close of a two-years’imaginative task; or how an Author feels as if he were dismissingsome portion of himself into the shadowy world, whena crowd of the creatures of his brain are going from him forever. Yet, I have nothing else to tell; unless, indeed, I wereto confess (which might be of less moment still) that no onecan ever believe this Narrative, in the reading, more than Ihave believed it in the writing.

Instead of looking back, therefore, I will look forward. Icannot close this Volume more agreeably to myself, than with ahopeful glance towards the time when I shall again put forthmy two green leaves once a month, and with a faithful remembranceof the genial sun and showers that have fallen on theseleaves of David Copperfield, and made me happy.

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