We left off last time with David having just married Dora, his childhood sweetheart. But as we all know, life rarely goes the way we plan it. Dora is sweet and loving but utterly helpless as a housekeeper. She can't manage the servants, can't keep the accounts, and burns everything she tries to cook. David loves her desperately but slowly realizes that she is more of a child-wife than a true partner.

Meanwhile, Uriah Heep's villainy comes fully to light. He has been embezzling from Mr. Wickfield for years, slowly tightening his grip on the old man and his daughter Agnes. It is Mr. Micawber — that lovable, perpetually indebted optimist — who finally exposes him in a dramatic confrontation scene that is one of the most satisfying in all of Dickens.

Emily's story reaches its conclusion as well. She had run off with Steerforth, David's glamorous but selfish school friend, only to be abandoned on the Continent when Steerforth tired of her. Her uncle, the devoted fisherman Mr. Peggotty, has spent years searching for her across Europe. He finds her at last, broken but alive, and together they emigrate to Australia for a fresh start.

Steerforth himself meets a dramatic end in a storm off the coast of Yarmouth — the same storm that kills Ham Peggotty, who dies trying to save him. It is one of the most powerful passages in the novel, and Dickens writes it with a ferocity that still takes your breath away.

Dora's health declines and she dies young, leaving David bereft. It is only then, in his grief, that he begins to see what has been in front of him all along: Agnes Wickfield, his truest and most steadfast friend, has loved him for years. Their eventual union feels not like a romantic twist but like a homecoming — the most natural thing in the world.

What strikes me most about David Copperfield is how honestly Dickens writes about the difference between the love we think we want and the love that actually sustains us. David's passion for Dora is real and tender, but it is Agnes — patient, wise, and true — who is the making of him. It is a distinction that feels as relevant today as it did in 1850.

I finished this book on a rainy afternoon with a pot of tea and a plate of shortbread, and I sat quietly for a long time afterward. That is the mark of a great book, I think — that it leaves you needing a moment to return to yourself. David Copperfield is Dickens at his most personal and most humane, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.