‘Great Expectations’ is among Charles Dickens’ most beloved and critically acclaimed novels. Serialized in 1860-61, the book tells the story of young ‘Pip, ‘ an orphan who is being raised by his hot-tempered sister and her kindly blacksmith husband. One night, while visiting his parents’ graves, he is accosted by an escaped convict named Magwitch, who demands both food and the tools needed to remove his shackles. Pip brings him these items and the convict flees.
A few years afterwards, Pip is invited to become the part-time companion of a rich spinster named Miss Havisham who – having been left at the altar years earlier – now roams her dilapidated house (still decorated for the ill-fated nuptials) in her old wedding dress. At Miss Havisham’s, Pip meets and falls in love with the cold-hearted but beautiful Estella, whom Miss Havisham is raising to punish men in retribution to her own, painful rejection.
When Pip suddenly learns that he has come into an inheritance that will set him up for an apprenticeship and a bright future as a gentleman, he becomes convinced that Miss Havisham is his benefactor and he embarks on a new life – and new adventures – in London.
A smashing success when it was first published, ‘Great Expectations’ has gone on to become a literary classic and has been adapted countless times for the stage and screen. The novel is presented here in its original and unabridged format.
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Charles Dickens was born February 7, 1812 in Landport, Portsmouth, the second of eight children to John and Elizabeth Dickens. Dickens’ father had great difficulty managing his affairs and was often under the burden of crushing debt, which culminated in his imprisonment in Marshalsea debtor’s prison in 1824. As a result, Dickens was forced to leave school and begin work at a boot-blacking factory to assist in getting the family out of debt, an experience that would allow Dickens to sympathize with the plight of the poor and destitute that would last his entire life. Dickens took to writing immediately and, in 1833, he published his first story: A Dinner at Popular Walk in Monthly Magazine. The following year, he began writing under the pseudonym Boz and released a collection of short stories entitled Sketches by Boz in 1836. That same year he married Catherine Hogarth, daughter of the editor of the Evening Chronicle. They had 10 children before they separated in 1858. From 1836 to 1837, Dickens serialized what would become the novel The Pickwick Papers, which was an immediate sensation and became one of his most popular works, released in book form in 1837. Encouraged by this success, Dickens began writing at a furious and astonishing rate, producing (in serial form) some of his most favorite novels: Oliver Twist (1837-39), Nicholas Nickleby (1838-39), as well as The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge (1840-41). After that, Dickens barely paused for the rest of his career. He would regularly release a book ever year or so for the next two decades, including American Notes, his five Christmas Books (including, of course, A Christmas Carol), David Copperfield, Bleak House, A Tale of Two Cities, and Great Expectations. Charles Dickens suffered a stroke on June 9, 1870 at died at Gad’s Hill. Buried in the Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey.
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