It will be obvious to many that, however seriously I have felt
my responsibility to those who are reading Dickens here for the
first time, my judgment of the significance of the material chosen
is not infallible. Other tastes, other selections. I can only say that
readers who have come to the pages of the Dickens Digest as if
today were the first day of their genesis have reacted as did those
readers a hundred years ago who awaited impatiently each fresh
appearance of the immortal characters.

David Copperfield. "Of all my books, I like this the best," Dickens
wrote in his Preface. Perhaps most of us do, not because we read
our own story in David's, as his biographer did, but because we
meet here people who enrich immeasurably our emotional lives:
the Micawbers, the Peggottys, the villains! Uneasily aware of the
shade of Dickens over my shoulder as I cut his text, I was almost
persuaded of a lightening of the atmosphere when, having read
the scenes between Mr. Murdstone and David and his mother at
least ten times, I found my tears falling like rain as I finally typed
the version you read here. And if I have held firmly to the main
threads of the narrative, no one, I think, can complain of that.

Oliver Twist. "The key of the great characters of Dickens is
that they are all great fools," Chesterton said. Only Mr. Bumble,
then, in this tale, belongs in that supreme category. But the novel
represents, as Chesterton also said, the talent for horror that is
next to Dickens's talent for humor; and it is one of the best of his
social tracts. As for Oliver himself, and Fagin, Bill Sikes, and the
Artful Dodger--they will not die as long as young readers are
encouraged to meet them. Those of us who read Oliver Twist in
our childhood will never forget some of the scenes that are repro-
duced here almost verbatim. It is my belief that the memories of
those who read the novel in this version will be as richly stored.

Martin Chuzzlewit. This novel, alone among those included in
the Dickens Digest, is not a contemporary favorite. The other three,
along with the Christmas stories, A Tale of Two Cities, and Great
Expectations (all comparatively short), are most in demand at
libraries and bookstores. But I believe that the elements I have
minimized in the condensed version (the complexity of the plot's
ramifications, the monotony of the satiric repetitions, the satire
which has become dated or was overdrawn to begin with) are
the very elements which have impaired the popularity of this

-vi-