I REMARKED in the original Preface to this Book, that I did not find iteasy to get sufficiently far away from it, in the first sensations ofhaving finished it, to refer to it with the composure which this formalheading would seem to require. My interest in it was so recent andstrong, and my mind was so divided between pleasure and regret--pleasurein the achievement of a long design, regret in the separation from manycompanions--that I was in danger of wearying the reader with personalconfidences and private emotions.

Besides which, all that I could have said of the Story to any purpose, Ihad endeavoured to say in it.

It would concern the reader little, perhaps, to know how sorrowfully thepen is laid down at the close of a two-years' imaginative task; or howan Author feels as if he were dismissing some portion of himself intothe shadowy world, when a crowd of the creatures of his brain are goingfrom him for ever. Yet, I had nothing else to tell; unless, indeed, Iwere to confess (which might be of less moment still), that no one canever believe this Narrative, in the reading, more than I believed it inthe writing.

So true are these avowals at the present day, that I can now only takethe reader into one confidence more. Of all my books, I like this thebest. It will be easily believed that I am a fond parent to every childof my fancy, and that no one can ever love that family as dearly as Ilove them. But, like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts afavourite child. And his name is

DAVID COPPERFIELD.

1869