Great Expectations (1861). by

Great Expectations is the thirteenth novel by Charles Dickens and his penultimate completed novel; a bildungsroman that depicts the personal growth and personal development of an orphan nicknamed Pip. It is Dickens's 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' most memorable scenes, including the opening 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 (popular both with readers and literary critics) has been translated into many languages and adapted numerous times into various media. Upon its release, the novel received near universal acclaim, though Thomas Carlyle spoke disparagingly of "all that Pip's nonsense."Later, George Bernard Shaw praised the novel, as "All of one piece and consistently truthfull."During the serial publication, Dickens was pleased with public response to Great Expectations and its sales;when the plot first formed in his mind, he called it "a very fine, new and grotesque idea."On Christmas Eve, around 1812, [9] Pip, an orphan who is about seven years old, encounters an escaped convict in the village churchyard while visiting the graves of his mother Georgiana, father Philip Pirrip and siblings. The convict scares Pip into stealing food and a file to grind away his shackles, from the home he shares with his abusive elder sister and her kind husband Joe Gargery, a blacksmith. The next day, soldiers recapture the convict while he is engaged in a fight with another escaped convict; the two are returned to the prison ships. Miss Havisham, a wealthy spinster who wears an old wedding dress and lives in the dilapidated Satis House, asks Pip's Uncle Pumblechook (who is Joe's uncle) to find a boy to visit. Pip visits Miss Havisham and her adopted daughter Estella, falling in love with Estella on first sight, both quite young. Pip visits Miss Havisham regularly until it comes time for him to learn a trade; Joe accompanies Pip for the last visit when she gives the money for Pip to be bound as apprentice blacksmith. Pip settles into learning Joe's trade. When both are away from the house, Mrs. Joe is brutally attacked, leaving her unable to speak or do her work. Biddy arrives to help with her care and becomes 'a blessing to the household'. Four years into Pip's apprenticeship, Mr. Jaggers, a lawyer, approaches him in the village with the news that he has expectations from an anonymous benefactor, with immediate funds to train him in the gentlemanly arts. He will not know the benefactor's name until that person speaks up. Pip is to leave for London in the proper clothes. He assumes that Miss Havisham is his benefactor. He visits her to say good-bye. Pip sets up house with Herbert Pocket at Barnard's Inn. Herbert tells Pip the circumstances of Miss Havisham's romantic disappointment, her jilting by her fiancé. Pip goes to Hammersmith, to be educated by Mr Matthew Pocket, Herbert's father. Jaggers disburses the money Pip needs to set himself up in his new life. Joe visits Pip at Barnard's Inn, where Pip is a bit ashamed of Joe. Joe relays the message from Miss Havisham that Estella will be at Satis House for a visit. ... Charles John Huffam Dickens ( 7 February 1812 - 9 June 1870) was an English writer and s