sign in| help
Search advanced search
 
Books
Search:
x dismiss this message

Did you know you can edit this page?

Great Expectations
  • Rated 0 stars
Read Great Expectations

Great Expectations (1861) (edit title/settings)

by Charles Dickens (Author) (edit contributors)

Share this book on:
see page history

Description edit see section history

Great Expectations, described by G. K. Chesterton as a “study in human weakness and the slow human surrender,” may be called Charles Dickens' finest moment in a remarkably illustrious literary career. Written in the last decade of his life, Great Expectations reveals Dickens’ dark attitudes... read more

Summary edit see section history

Pip is an orphan brought up by his sister and so the venture begins when he is forced into helping a convict while he was quite young.

Characters edit see section history

  • Philip "Pip" Pirrip: Pip starts as a common boy, and longs to have great fotunes. He mysteriousily gets his longings answered and loses his fortunes by the end of the story.
  • Miss Havisham: She sets herself on fire, which results in Pip getting burned while trying to put out the flames.
  • Estella: Miss Havisham’s beautiful young ward, Estella is Pip’s unattainable dream throughout the novel. She brandishes her pride by the end and recognizes Pip's affections.
  • Able Magwitch: He seems very mysterious and fearful, but makes entrances into the novel throughout. We discover he gave Pip his fortune and see that Magwitch dies for his actions.
  • Mrs. Joe Gargery: She dies fairly young.
  • Joe Gargery: He nutures Pip when he is deathly ill.
  • Biddy: A simple, kindhearted country girl. Later becomes Pip's Brother in Law's wife.
  • Miss Skiffins: Wemmrick eventually ends up marrying her.
  • Wemmick: He is Mr. Jaggers’s clerk and Pip’s friend. He is in charge of the money distribution from Mr. Jaggers.
  • Herbert Pocket: He is the son of Matthew Pocket, Miss Havisham’s cousin and Pip's best friend.
  • Clara: She marries Herbert.
  • Mr Jaggers: The powerful, foreboding lawyer hired to supervise Pip’s elevation to the upper class. He is Mrs. Havishirm's lawyer as well.
  • Bentley Drummle: Pip's romantic nemesis and brute.
  • Compeyson: He is a convict who was partners in crime with Magwitch. He is disliked and a rude charactor.
  • Mr Pumblechook: Pip's great-uncle and is not a very nice man.
  • Mr. Wopsle: The clerk of the church in Pip's village.
  • Aged P: Wemmick's aged father who Wemmick looks after.
Show all 17 characters
Popular Covers

Loading covers…

Choose your book’s cover

Quotes edit see section history

  • “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 never would have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.”
    Pip
  • “Mrs. Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her cleanliness more uncomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and some people do the same by their religion.”
  • “It were understood,” said Joe. “And it are understood. And it ever will be similar according.”
  • “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 verily believe that her not remembering and not minding in the least made me cry again, inwardly – and that is the sharpest crying of all.”
  • “And now, dear Biddy, if you can tell me that you will go through the world with me, you will surely make it a better world for me, and me a better man for it, and I will try hard to make it a better world for you.”
  • “In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.”
  • “So throughout life our worst weaknesses and meanness are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise”
  • “If I ain't a gentleman, nor yet ain't got no learning, I'm the owner of such. All on you owns stock and land; which on you owns a bought-up London gentleman?”
    Abel Magwitch, the Convict
  • “And then he would rumple my hair the wrong way,--which from my earliest remembrance, as already hinted, I have in my soul denied the right of any fellow-creature to do,--and would hold me before him by the sleeve,--a spectacle of imbecility only to be equalled by himself. Ch. 12”
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  •     Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.
    Highlighted by 27 Kindle customers
  • So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise.
    Highlighted by 27 Kindle customers
  • 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.
    Highlighted by 26 Kindle customers
  •     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.
    Highlighted by 25 Kindle customers
  • Mrs. Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her cleanliness more uncomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and some people do the same by their religion.
    Highlighted by 18 Kindle customers
  • And the communication I have got to make is, that he has great expectations.'
    Highlighted by 16 Kindle customers
  • I never had one hour's happiness in her society, and yet my mind all round the four-and-twenty hours was harping on the happiness of having her with me unto death.
    Highlighted by 15 Kindle customers
  • There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did. To the best of my belief, our case was in the last aspect a rather common one.
    Highlighted by 14 Kindle customers
  • Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I loved her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection.
    Highlighted by 12 Kindle customers
  • All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself.
    Highlighted by 10 Kindle customers
Show all 20 quotes from this book

Setting & Locations edit see section history

Show all 18 settings

First Sentence edit see section history

My Father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip.

Table of Contents edit see section history

Volume I
Volume II
Volume III

Glossary edit see section history

  • Accoucheur policeman: An Accoucheur was a male midwife or an obstetrical doctor. Because Pip's sister always acts as if Pip had insisted on being born, she treats him like a criminal. Pip concludes that since he was an "offender" at birth, he was delivered to his sister by an obstetrical policeman.
  • Antipodes: That is, through a trapdoor. The actual definition is any two places that are directly opposite each other on the earth.
  • Bad courtier: A courtier, originally an attendant at a royal court, refers here to someone who is adept at using flattery to get something or to win favor. Herbert's father is a bad courtier with Miss Havisham in that he does not flatter her but speaks the truth whether she likes it or not.
  • Fired a rick: Set fire to a haystack. Pip's reference to this crime means people would have viewed him as a major criminal because at that time, children even as young as 7 were sometimes hanged for arson.

Series & Lists edit see section history

This book is in Oprah's Book Club. (authoritative list)
This is book 20 of 10 in Classics and Contemporaries. (edition-based publisher list)

Followed by Oliver Twist.

This book is in Guardian 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read. (authoritative list)
This is book 22 of 113 in Book Smart Reading List. (community list)

Preceded by Go Tell It on the Mountain, and followed by An American Tragedy.

This is book 17 of 196 in BBC 'Big Read' Top 200 Novels, 2003. (authoritative list)

Preceded by The Wind in the Willows, and followed by Little Women.

This is book 10 of 95 in Telegraph Top 100 Books, 2008. (authoritative list)

Followed by Little Women.

This is book 16 of 91 in The Novel 100: A Ranking of the Greatest Novels of All Time, 2004. (authoritative list)

Followed by Absalom, Absalom!.

This is book 71 of 195 in Shelfari Most Popular (June 2010). (authoritative list)

Preceded by The Hunger Games, and followed by Night.

This is book 876 of 1271 in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. (authoritative list)

Preceded by Silas Marner, and followed by On the Eve.

This book is in Folio Society. (edition-based publisher list)
This book is in 100 Fantabulous Book Challenge. (community list)

Preceded by Anne of Green Gables, and followed by The Owl Service.

This book is in Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition Book Covers. (community list)
This is book 79 of 195 in Shelfari Most Popular (June 2011). (authoritative list)

Preceded by The Shack, and followed by The Road.

This book is in Modern Library Classics. (edition-based publisher list)
This is book 81 of 194 in Shelfari Most Popular (December 2010). (authoritative list)

Preceded by The Firm, and followed by The Sea of Monsters.

This book is in Cover to Cover Classics. (edition-based publisher list)
This book is in Arcturus Paperback Classics. (edition-based publisher list)
This book is in Penguin Classics. (edition-based publisher list)
This is book 80 of 195 in Shelfari Most Popular (December 2011). (authoritative list)

Preceded by The Shack, and followed by The Road.

This book is in Readers Digest Press. (edition-based publisher list)
This book is in Heritage Press. (edition-based publisher list)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Chapman & Hall
Country: Great Britain
Publication Date: 1861
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 799

Awards edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

  • Library of Congress: PR4560 .A1
  • Dewey: 823.8

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Reading Level: Adults

Many high school students read this as part of their literature curriculum.

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

Movie Connections edit see section history

Books with Additional Background Information edit see section history

   

Books That Cite This Book edit see section history

   
  • The Language Police

We’re hiding the errata, books that influenced this book, books influenced by this book and books cited by this book sections. If you would like to add content to them, you must first make them visible.

© 2006-2012 Shelfari | Terms & Conditions | Privacy Policy | Copyright Policy

Close