And the winner is...

Drumroll...David Copperfield.  Chosen by deciding to walk to a random library branch, not near where I live, and choose from whatever they had. They only had this one. Thinly veiled autobiography, wildly successful. Serialized in the late 1840's, published in full in 1850, I think. I believe it was also the author's favorite book. It's the Everyman's Library edition, which with all the appendices and intro, is around 900 pages. This man did not write short novels. I can renew it for up to nine weeks total, so I do have a deadline here. I can usually make deadlines.