David Copperfield, by Charles DickensRead about the other entries on the list.
This may not just be my favorite Dickens novel, but my favorite novel period. I read it regularly, and every time is an undimmed pleasure. More, every time it feels fresh. That is the mark of greatness. Although the comic characterization is as juicy as ever, and it’s impossible to read without laughing out loud, Dickens here gives the fullest expression — through the hero who tellingly bears, if back to front, his initials — of horror at the heartbreak, savagery, and injustice of the world. It is the ultimate bildungsroman and the truest story of how a person comes to be. Not for nothing was it Freud’s favorite novel.
David Copperfield is among ShortList's forty greatest villains in literature. Siri Hustvedt's six favorite books, Janet Davey’s top ten schoolchildren in fiction, Frank Rich's top ten books, John Boyne's top ten child narrators, Lynn Shepherd's top ten fictional drownings and Elizabeth Gilbert's six favorite books. It appears on John Mullan's lists of ten of the best seductions in literature, ten of the best trips to Canterbury in literature and ten of the best valets in literature.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
