Great Expectation

COMPLETE & UNABRIDGED. Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was an English writer and social commentator who is regarded as the finest novelist of the Victorian-era. He was an exceptional creator of character perhaps second only to Shakespeare.Through his novels he fiercely criticised the poverty and social stratification of Victorian society. He had to leave school to work ten-hour days in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtor’s prison. In spite of his lack of formal education he went on to become a literary juggernaut and achieved world-wide fame within his lifetime.Great Expectations published in 1861 is Charles Dickens’ thirteenth novel and his penultimate completed one. It is a bildungsroman completely narrated in the first person by the protagonist an orphan named Pip where he comes to realize that his ‘great expectations’—social standing and wealth—are less important than loyalty and benevolence. It is a novel steeped in vivid imagery and boasts of a peculiar cast who have since entered into pop culture. The main themes governing the plot are poverty and wealth love and rejection and the final triumph of good over evil. Like many of Dickens’ novels it is a critique of Victorian society with a unique blend of wit humour tragedy and mystery. However it is first and foremost a novel about the search for true identity. Great Expectations was initially published as a series in Dickens’ weekly All the Year Round from 1st December 1860 to August 1861. Upon its publication it was an instant hit and received almost universal acclaim including from authors like G.B. Shaw.