Great Expectations : Penguin Classic (Penguin Clothbound Classics)

Part of Penguins beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. Pip doesnt expect much from life...His sister makes it clear that her orphaned little brother is nothing but a burden on her. But suddenly things begin to change. Pips narrow existence is blown apart when he finds an escaped criminal is summoned to visit a mysterious old woman and meets the icy beauty Estella. Most astoundingly of all an anonymous person gives him money to begin a new life in London. Are these events as random as they seem? Or does Pips fate hang on a series of coincidences he could never have expected? Review No story in the first person was ever better told. About the Author Charles Dickens was born on 7 February 1812. He began Oliver Twist in 1837 followed by Nicholas Nickleby (1838) and The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41). A Christmas Carol appeared in 1843 David Copperfield in 1850. In later works such as Bleak House (1853) and Little Dorrit (1857) Dickenss social criticism became more radical and his comedy more savage. He published Hard Times in 1854 A Tale of Two Cities in 1859 and Great Expectations in 1860. His last novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood was never completed and he died on 9 June 1870. David Trotter is Quain Professor of English Language and Literature and Head of Department at University College London. Charlotte Mitchell is Lecturer in English at University College London. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter I.My fathers family name being Pirrip and my christian name Philip myinfant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit thanPip. So I called myself Pip and came to be called Pip.I give Pirrip as my fathers family name on the authority of his tombstoneand my sister - Mrs. Joe Gargery who married the blacksmith. As I never sawmy father or my mother and never saw any likeness of either of them (fortheir days were long before the days of photographs) my first fanciesregarding what they were like were unreasonably derived from theirtombstones. The shape of the letters on my fathers gave me an odd ideathat he was a square stout dark man with curly black hair. From thecharacter and turn of the inscription Also Georgiana Wife of the AboveI drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly. Tofive little stone lozenges each about a foot and a half long which werearranged in a neat row beside their grave and were sacred to the memory offive little brothers of mine - who gave up trying to get a living exceedinglyearly in that universal struggle - I am indebted for a belief I religiouslyentertained that they had all been born on their backs with their hands intheir trousers-pockets and had never taken them out in this state ofexistence.Ours was the marsh country down by the river within as the river woundtwenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad impression of theidentity of things seems to me to have been gained on a memorable rawafternoon towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain thatthis bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard; and that PhilipPirrip late of this parish and also Georgiana wife of the above weredead and buried; and that Alexander Bartholomew Abraham Tobias andRoger infant children of the aforesaid were also dead and buried; andthat the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard intersected with dykesand mounds and gates with scattered cattle feeding on it was the marshes;and that the low leaden line beyond was the river; and that the distantsavage lair from which the wind was rushing was the sea; and that thesmall bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry was