Charles Dickens is among the Classics.

George Samson aptly remarks that like Shakespeare, Dickens has conquered the world. This is absolutely true about his immortal novel David Copperfield. This novel reveals Dickens’ conviction-‘a belief in the paramount value of the primary, simple, benevolent impulses of man, his instinctive wish to love love and laugh, give and share’.

The most remarkable quality of his novels is his humor. R. C. Churchill rightly comments” “In the field of comedy, I put Dickens above Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Fielding and Smollett.” Priestley too says that Dickens “made more people laugh than the sum total of authors in several literatures.”

Dickens has created immortal characters in this novel. The major characters in this novel are David Copperfield, Uriah Heep, Betsey, Mr. Micawber and Miss Clara Peggotty. Mr. Micawber is an immortal character like Shakespeare’s Falstaff and Cervantes’ Don Quixote.

The novel includes autobiographical element. David is Charles Dickens himself. Mr. and Mrs. Micawber remind us of Dickens’ own parents.

F.R. Leavis aptly remarks: “Dickens was a great genius and is permanently among the classics”.

Matthew Arnold too admired this novel highly: “What a pleasure to have the opportunity of praising a work so sound, a work so rich in merit, as David Copperfield! Of the contemporary rubbish which is shot so plentifully all around us, we can, indeed, hardly read too little.  But to contemporary work so good as David Copperfield, we are in danger of perhaps not paying respect enough.”