An edition of Great Expectations (1861)

Great Expectations

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  • 3.8 (159 ratings)
  • 868 Want to read
  • 62 Currently reading
  • 214 Have read


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Last edited by mheimanbot
January 14, 2025 | History
An edition of Great Expectations (1861)

Great Expectations

  • 3.8 (159 ratings)
  • 868 Want to read
  • 62 Currently reading
  • 214 Have read

Charles Dickens was a British author, journalist, and editor whose work brought attention to the struggles of Victorian England’s lower classes. His writings provided a candid portrait of the era’s poor and served as inspiration for social change.

Great Expectations, Dickens’ thirteenth novel, was first published in serial form between 1860 and 1861 and is widely praised as the author’s greatest literary accomplishment.

The novel follows the life, relationships, and moral development of an orphan boy named Pip. The novel begins when Pip encounters an escaped convict whom he helps and fears in equal measure. Pip’s actions that day set off a sequence of events and interactions that shape Pip’s character as he matures into adulthood.

The vivid characters, engaging narrative style, and universal themes of Great Expectations establish this novel as a timeless literary classic, and an engaging portrait of Victorian life.

Publish Date
Publisher
Standard Ebooks
Language
English

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Previews available in: English Dutch French

Edition Availability
Cover of: Great Expectations
Great Expectations
2019, Standard Ebooks
in English
Cover of: Great Expectations
Great Expectations
2016-01-14, LibriVox
Digital Audio in English
Cover of: Groote Verwachtingen
Groote Verwachtingen
2013-09-23, LibriVox
in Dutch
Cover of: Great Expectations
Great Expectations
2012-11-15, LibriVox
Digital Audio in English
Cover of: Great Expectations
Great Expectations
2008-12-12, LibriVox
Digital Audio in English
Cover of: Les grandes espérances
Les grandes espérances
2006, Project Gutenberg
ebook in French
Cover of: Great Expectations
Great Expectations
1998-07-01, Project Gutenberg
in English
Cover of: Great Expectations
Great Expectations
1987-01-01, Chancellor Press
Cover of: Great Expectations (Peebles Classic Library)
Great Expectations (Peebles Classic Library)
1969-01-01, Peebles Press International
in English
Cover of: Great Expectations (Bancroft classics, 39!)
Great Expectations (Bancroft classics, 39!)
1968-01-01, Bancroft
in English
Cover of: Great Expectations (SBS T 630, Campus Classic)
Great Expectations (SBS T 630, Campus Classic)
1968, Scholastic Book Services
in English
Cover of: Great expectations
Great expectations
1963-01-01, Chandler Pub. Co., Oxford University Press
in English
Cover of: Great Expectations
Great Expectations
1963-01-01, Signet, Washington Square Press
Cover of: The Works of Charles Dickens
The Works of Charles Dickens: Great Expectations
1868, Books Inc.
Hardcover in English - Cleartype Edition
Cover of: Great Expectations
Great Expectations: And Some Account of an Extraordinary Traveller
1868, Books
Hardcover in English - Cleartype ed.
Cover of: Great Expectations
Great Expectations: And Some Account of an Extraordinary Traveller
1868, Books
Hardcover in English - Cleartype ed.
Cover of: Great Expectations / The Uncommercial Traveller / New Uncommercial Samples / Sketches of Young Couples

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Book Details


Edition Identifiers

Open Library
OL37044501M
Standard Ebooks
charles-dickens/great-expectations

Work Identifiers

Work ID
OL8721462W

Work Description

Great Expectations is the thirteenth novel by Charles Dickens and his penultimate completed novel. It depicts the education of an orphan nicknamed Pip (the book is a bildungsroman; a coming-of-age story). It is Dickens' second novel, after David Copperfield, to be fully narrated in the first person. The novel was first published as a serial in Dickens's weekly periodical All the Year Round, from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. In October 1861, Chapman and Hall published the novel in three volumes.

The novel is set in Kent and London in the early to mid-19th century and contains some of Dickens's most celebrated scenes, starting in a graveyard, where the young Pip is accosted by the escaped convict Abel Magwitch. Great Expectations is full of extreme imagery – poverty, prison ships and chains, and fights to the death – and has a colourful cast of characters who have entered popular culture. These include the eccentric Miss Havisham, the beautiful but cold Estella, and Joe, the unsophisticated and kind blacksmith. Dickens's themes include wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and the eventual triumph of good over evil. Great Expectations, which is popular both with readers and literary critics, has been translated into many languages and adapted numerous times into various media.

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