Charles Dickens - Great Expectations

Table of Contents

FROM THE PAGES OF GREAT EXPECTATIONS

My fathers family name being Pirrip, and my christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip. (page 3)

I was always treated as if I had insisted on being born in opposition to the dictates of reason, religion, and morality, and against the dissuading arguments of my best friends. (page 23)

In the little world in which children have their existence whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice. (page 60)

That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day. (page 69)

It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home. (page 103)

Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than beforemore sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle. (page 153)

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First published serially in All the Year Round in 1860-1861.
This edition follows the text of the Charles Dickens edition of 1868.

Originally published in mass market format in 2003 by Barnes & Noble Classics
with new Introduction, Notes, Biography, Chronology, Inspired By,
Comments & Questions, and For Further Reading.
This trade paperback edition published in 2005.

Introduction, Notes, The Original Ending to Great Expectations, and For Further Reading

Copyright 2003 by Radhika Jones.

Note on Charles Dickens, The World of Charles Dickens and Great Expectations,
Inspired by Great Expectations, and Comments & Questions
Copyright 2004 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

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Great Expectations

ISBN-13: 978-1-59308-116-4 ISBN-10: 1-59308-116-2

eISBN : 978-1-411-43383-0

LC Control Number 2004115320

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CHARLES DICKENS

Born on February 7, 1812, Charles Dickens was the second of eight children in a family burdened with financial troubles. Despite his deprived beginnings, he became the best-selling writer of his time.

In 1824, young Charles was withdrawn from school and forced to work at a boot-blacking factory when his improvident fatherin fact, his entire family, except for himwas sent to debtors prison, where they remained for three months. Once they were released, Charles attended a private school for three years. The young man then became a solicitors clerk, mastered shorthand, and before long was employed as a Parliamentary reporter. When he was in his early twenties, Dickens began to publish stories and sketches of London life in a variety of periodicals.

It was the publication of The Pickwick Papers (18361837) that catapulted the twenty-five-year-old author to national renown. Dickens wrote with unequaled speed and often worked on several novels at a time, publishing them first in monthly installments and then as books. His early novels Oliver Twist (1837-1838), Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1841), and A Christmas Carol (1843) solidified his enormous, ongoing popularity. When Dickens was in his late thirties, his social criticism became biting, his humor dark, and his view of poverty darker still. David Copperfield (1849-1850), Bleak House (1852-1853), Hard Times (1854), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860- 1861), and Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865) are the great works of his masterful and prolific later period.

In 1858 Dickenss twenty-three-year marriage to Catherine Hogarth dissolved when he fell in love with Ellen Ternan, a young actress. The last years of his life were filled with intense activity: writing, managing amateur theatricals, and undertaking several reading tours that reinforced the publics favorable view of his work but took an enormous toll on his health. Working feverishly to the last, Dickens collapsed and died on June 9, 1870, leaving The Mystery of Edwin Drood uncompleted.

THE WORLD OF CHARLES DICKENS AND GREAT EXPECTATIONS