Product Description

Great Expectations charts the progress of Pip from childhood through often painful experiences to adulthood, as he moves from the Kent marshes to busy, commercial London, encountering a variety of extraordinary characters ranging from Magwitch, the escaped convict, to Miss Havisham, locked up with her unhappy past and living with her ward, the arrogant, beautiful Estella. In this compelling story, Dickens shows the dangers of being driven by a desire for wealth and social
status. Pip must establish his own sense of self against the plans which others seem to have for him, and thus discover a firm set of values and priorities. Whether such values will allow one to prosper in the complex world of early Victorian England is, however, the major question posed by Great Expectations, one of Dickens's most fascinating and disturbing novels.

This edition uses the text of the Clarendon edition, with a new Introduction and explanatory notes. The appendices give the original, discarded ending, Dickens's brief working notes, and the serial instalments and chapter divisions in different editions.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #43664 in Books
• Published on: 1998-03-05
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 544 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
An absorbing mystery as well as a morality tale, the story of Pip, a poor village lad, and his expectations of wealth is Dickens at his most deliciously readable. The cast of characters includes kindly Joe Gargery, the loyal convict Abel Magwitch and the haunting Miss Havisham. If you have heartstrings, count on them being tugged.

Synopsis
I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.' Great Expectations charts the progress of Pip from childhood through often painful experiences to adulthood, as he moves from the Kent marshes to busy, commercial London, encoutering a variety of extraordinary characters ranging from Magwitch, the excaped convict, to Miss Havisham, locked up with her unhappy past and living with her ward, the arrogant, beautiful Estella. In this compelling story, Dickens shows the dangers of being driven by desire for wealth and social status. Pip must establish his own sense of self against the plans which others seem to have for him, and thus discover a firm set of values and priorities. Whether such values will allow one to prosper in the complex world of early Victorian England is, however, the major question posed by Great Expectations, one of Dicken's most fascinating, and disturbing, novels. This edition use the text of the Clarendon edition, with a new Introduction and Explanatory Notes. The Appendices give the original, discarded ending, Dicken's brief working notes, and the serial instalments and chapter divisions in different editions.

About the Author
Kate Flint is University Lecturer in Victorian and Modern English Literature, and Fellow of Linacre College, Oxford. She is the author of several books, and the editor of Trollope's Can You Forgive Her and Woolf's Jacob's Room in World's Classics. Margaret Cardwell has edited The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Martin Chuzzlewit in World's Classics.

Customer Reviews

My first Dickens
I have to admit that this is the first book by Charles Dickens that I have read. Of course, I know all the stories but have never read one, even at school. So I found myself being intrigued by what I appeared to be missing in successful novels and authors so I thought it about time that I took one up. I know this is an old classic with many reviews and many great admirers but I will just write my review based on what I thought of the story. I took an immediate dislike to the main character Pip but I can't really say why. I found him to be selfish and the part that he played with the convict was only because he was scared not to help. I found it confusing that each character seemed to have different names depending on who is refereeing to them. Great Expectation is full of irony and plot is complex in establishing and solving mysteries. I did find the middle part of the story slightly boring and I didn't really understand where it was leading but I feel that it was well worth the read and will now read more of Dickens work.

Rapturous Moments in Dickens!
We all need our dreams. We have all fallen in love. Dickens's susceptible hero Pip believes that the 'star' of his dream is the beautiful Estella, because she had been granted to him by his fairy God-mother Miss Havisham, in a rare moment of compassion. Every turn of Pip's first person narration in the novel shouts 'No!' to his interpretation of the world and its tricksy words. Yet Pip's near fatal fallibility and misreading of his expectations humanises him and aligns his desperate romantic hopefulness to our own. Uneasily we admit our own private quests for love, and what a big love we crave after all!

'Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of my self. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here...You have been in every prospect I have ever seen...You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with....'

Pip's incantatory admission that love has engulfed his life is gloriously obsessive and bravely embarrassing. Like Carol Ann Duffy in Rapture: 'When did your name change from a proper noun to a charm?' Dickens's hero gives voice to love's piratical need to ambush all signs of the beloved and claim them greedily for oneself. Pip's 'wonder' in the light of his icy star Estella anticipates Gatsby's 'wonder' at Daisy's famous 'green light' in Fitzgerald's much later novel.

Read and be awed. We all love dangerously once!

read it!
Finished re-reading this today. I'd forgotten just how fantastically playful and engaging Dickens' prose is: blink and you'll miss a delightful description of a chair, house or file brought to life. Besides the legendary Miss Havisham and Magwitch, Pip's story is also populated with such memorable characters as the finger-biting lawyer Jaggers; the warm-hearted, postbox-mouthed Wemmick (who literally fortifies his private life with the 'Aged P'); and the grandiose windbag Pumblechook. No novelist can match Dickens for sheer imaginative generosity; his fictional universe fizzes with diversity, depth and irrepressible vitality. As befits a book written originally for weekly publication, there's also a wealth of cliffhangers that'll keep you turning the pages. Blissful.