Though not specifically on David Copperfield, George Santayana’s essay defends the merits of Dickensian realism as against the burgeoning aesthetic of modernist fiction.

“Dicken’s Copperfield. ‘The Stoker’ a sheer imitation of Dickens, the projected novel even more so. The story of the trunk, the boy who delights and charms everyone, the menial labor, his sweetheart in the country house, the dirty houses, et al., but above all the method. It was my intention, as I now see, to write a Dickens novel, but enhanced by the sharper lights I should have taken from the times and the duller ones I should have got from myself.”

In “David Copperfield” there are perhaps as many monsters as in “Dombey and Son,” but they are not so merely monsters, and there are many more personalities. The of these is David’s poor, pretty young widowed mother, who in her hapless second marriage is very tenderly and truly portrayed, and the next are David’s successive and contrasted wives, Dora Spenlow and Agnes Wickfield…