Editing David Copperfield (section)

===Subsequent reputation===
[[File:Adolf Schrödter Falstaff und sein Page.jpg|right|thumb|upright=0.8|Falstaff (Adolf Schrödter, 1867), to whom J. B. Priestley compares Mr Micawber.]]

After Dickens's death, ''David Copperfield'' rose to the forefront of the writer's works, both through sales, for example, in ''Household Words'' in 1872 where sales reached 83,000,<ref>{{harvnb|Collins|1996|p=619}}</ref> and the praise of critics. In 1871, Scottish novelist and poet [[Margaret Oliphant]] described it as "the culmination of Dickens's early comic fiction";<ref>Margaret Oliphant, ''[[Blackwood's Magazine]]'', number 109, 1871.</ref> However, in the late nineteenth-century Dickens's critical reputation suffered a decline, though he continued to have many readers. This began when [[Henry James]] in 1865 "relegated Dickens to the second division of literature on the grounds that he could not 'see beneath the surface of things'". Then in 1872, two years after Dickens's death, [[George Henry Lewes]] wondered how to "reconcile [Dickens's] immense popularity with the 'critical contempt' which he attracted".<ref name=Pykett2008p471>{{harvnb|Pykett|2008|p=471}}</ref> However, Dickens was defended by the novelist [[George Gissing]] in 1898 in ''Charles Dickens: A Critical Study''.<ref name=Pykett2008p471 /> G. K. Chesterton published an important defence of Dickens in his book ''Charles Dickens'' in 1906, where he describes him as this "most English of our great writers".<ref name=Pykett2008p473>{{harvnb|Pykett|2008|p=473}}</ref> Dickens's literary reputation grew in the 1940s and 1950s because of essays by [[George Orwell]] and [[Edmund Wilson]] (both published in 1940), and Humphrey House's ''The Dickens World'' (1941).<ref name=Pykett2008pp474>{{harvnb|Pykett|2008|pp=474–475}}</ref> However, in 1948, [[F. R. Leavis]] in ''[[The Great Tradition]]'', contentiously, excluded Dickens from his canon, characterising him as a "popular entertainer"<ref name=Leavis1948p244>{{harvnb|Leavis|1948|p=244}}</ref> without "mature standards and interests".<ref name=Leavis1948p132>{{harvnb|Leavis|1948|p=132}}</ref>

[[File:Wilkins Micawber from David Copperfield by Frank Reynolds.jpg|thumb|upright|Wilkins Micawber by Frank Reynolds, per [[W Somerset Maugham|Maugham]] "he never fails you."]]
Dickens's reputation, however, continued to grow and K. J. Fielding (1965) and Geoffrey Thurley (1976) identify what they call ''David Copperfield'''s "centrality", and [[Q. D. Leavis]] in 1970, looked at the images he draws of marriage, of women, and of moral simplicity.<ref name=Schlicke1999p154>{{harvnb|Schlicke|1999|p=154}}</ref> In their 1970 publication ''Dickens the Novelist'', F. R. and Q. D. Leavis called Dickens "one of the greatest of creative writers", and F. R. Leavis had changed his mind about Dickens since his 1948 work, no longer finding the popularity of the novels with readers as a barrier to their seriousness or profundity.<ref>{{harvnb|Pykett|2008|Page=476}}</ref> In 1968 Sylvère Monod, after having finely analyzed the structure and style of the novel, describe it as "the triumph of the art of Dickens",<ref name=Monod1968>{{cite book |first=Sylvère |last=Monod |title=Dickens the Novelist |url=https://archive.org/details/lish00sylv |url-access=registration |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |year=1968 |isbn=978-0806107684}}</ref> which analysis was shared by Paul B. Davis.<ref name=Davis1999p92>{{harvnb|Davis|1999|p=92}}</ref> The central themes are explored by Richard Dunne in 1981, including the autobiographical dimension, the narrator-hero characterization process, memory and forgetting, and finally the privileged status of the novel in the [[intertextuality|interconnection between similar works of Dickens]].<ref name=Schlicke1999p154 /> Q. D. Leavis compares ''Copperfield'' to [[Leo Tolstoy|Tolstoy's]] ''[[War and Peace]]'' and looks at adult-child relationships in both novels. According to writer Paul B. Davis, Q. D. Leavis excels at dissecting David's relationship with Dora.<ref name=Davis1999p92 /> Gwendolyn Needham in an essay, published in 1954, analyzes the novel as a [[bildungsroman]], as did Jerome H. Buckley twenty years later.<ref name=Davis1999p92 /> In 1987 [[Alexander Welsh]] devoted several chapters to show that ''Copperfield'' is the culmination of Dickens's autobiographical attempts to explore himself as a novelist in the middle of his career. Finally, [[J. B. Priestley]] was particularly interested in Mr Micawber and concludes that "With the one exception of [[Falstaff]], he is the greatest comic figure in English literature".<ref name=Priestley1966p242>{{harvnb|Priestley|1966|loc=Chap XIII p 242}}</ref>

In 2015, the [[BBC]] Culture section polled book critics outside the UK about novels by British authors; they ranked ''David Copperfield'' eighth on the list of the 100 Greatest British Novels.<ref name=Ciabattari2015>{{cite news |url=http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20151204-the-100-greatest-british-novels |publisher=BBC Culture |title=The 100 greatest British novels |date=7 December 2015 |access-date=20 May 2019 |first=Jane |last=Ciabattari}}</ref> The characters and their varied places in society in the novel evoked reviewer comments, for example, the novel is "populated by some of the most vivid characters ever created,"  "David himself, Steerforth, Peggotty, Mr Dick – and it climbs up and down and off the class ladder.", remarked by critic [[Maureen Corrigan]] and echoed by [[Wendy Lesser]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20151204-the-25-greatest-british-novels |title=8. David Copperfield (Charles Dickens, 1850) |publisher=BBC Culture: The 25 Greatest British Novels |last=Ciabattari |first=Jane |date=7 December 2015 |access-date=20 May 2019 }}</ref>