Charles. Dickens

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Arizona

In the marshy mists of a village churchyard, a tiny orphan boy named Pip is suddenly terrified by a shivering, limping convict on the run. Years later, a supremely arrogant young Pip boards the coach to London where, by the grace of a mysterious benefactor, he will join the ranks of the idle rich and "become a gentleman." Finally, in the luminous mists of the village at evening, Pip the man meets Estella, his dazzingly beautiful tormentor, in a ruined garden--and lays to rest all the heartaches and illusions that his "great expectations" have brought upon him. Dickens's biographer, Edgar H. Johnson, has said that--except for the author's last-minute tampering with his original ending--Great Expectations is "the most perfectly constructed and perfectly written of all Dickens's works." In John Irving's Introduction to this edition, the novelist takes the view that Dickens's revised ending is "far more that mirror of the quality of trust in the novel as a whole." Both versions of the ending are printed here.

Great Expectations

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SparkNotes

Charles Dickens

Radhika Jones

This is one of the books that I have read for the RNL. This volume comes with some personal thoughts on this text

Illinois

Great Expectations, described by G. K. Chesterton as a “study in human weakness and the slow human surrender,” may be calledCharles Dickens’s finest moment in a remarkably illustrious literary career. In an overgrown churchyard, a grizzled convict springs upon an orphan named Pip. The convict terrifies the young boy and threatens to kill him unless Pip helps further his escape. Later, Pip finds himself in the ruined garden where he meets the bitter and crazy Miss Havisham and her foster child Estella, with whom he immediately falls in love. After a secret benefactor gives him a fortune, Pip moves to London, where he cultivates great expectations for a life which would allow him to discard his impoverished beginnings and socialize with the idle upper class. As Pip struggles to become a gentleman and is tormented endlessly by the beautiful Estella, he slowly learns the truth about himself and his illusions. Written in the last decade of his life,Great Expectationsreveals Dickens’s dark attitudes toward Victorian society, its inherent class structure, and its materialism. Yet this novel persists as one of Dickens’s most popular. Richly comic and immensely readable,Great Expectationsoverspills with vividly drawn characters, moral maelstroms, and the sorrow and pity of love.

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Category - Fiction / Classics

Format - Paperback

Condition - Fair

Listed - A year ago

Views - 7

Ships From - Arizona

Est. Publication Date - Feb 1998