"He was a very great novelist. He had enormous gifts. He thought
DAVID COPPERFIELD the best of all his books. An author is not always a
good judge of his own work, but in this case Dickens's judgement seems
to me correct. DAVID COPPERFIELD, as I suppose everyone knows, is in
great part autobiographical; but Dickens was writing a novel, not an
autobiography, and though he drew much of his material from his own
life, he made only such use of it as suited his purpose. For the rest,
he fell back on his vivid imagination."
W. Somerset Maugham, Ten Novels and Their Authors.
