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Great Expectations (Penguin Classics)

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'Great Expectations is up there for me with the world's greatest novels' Howard Jacobson. Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read Charles Dickens's Great Expectations charts the course of orphan Pip Pirrip's life as it is transformed by a vast, mysterious inheritance. A terrifying encounter with the escaped convict Abel Magwitch in a graveyard on the wild Kent marshes; a summons to meet the bitter, decrepit Miss Havisham and her beautiful, cold-hearted ward Estella at Satis House; the sudden generosity of a mysterious benefactor - these form a series of events that change the orphaned Pip's life forever, and he eagerly abandons his humble station as an apprentice to blacksmith Joe Gargery, beginning a new life as a gentleman. Charles Dickens's haunting late novel depicts Pip's education and development through adversity as he discovers the true nature of his identity, and his 'great expectations'. This definitive version uses the text from the first published edition of 1861. It includes a map of Kent in the early nineteenth century, and appendices on Dickens's original ending and his working notes, giving readers an illuminating glimpse into the mind of a great novelist at work. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. Read more

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Classics; Revised edition (December 31, 2002)


Language ‏ : ‎ English


Paperback ‏ : ‎ 544 pages


ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0141439564


ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 63


Reading age ‏ : ‎ 14+ years, from customers


Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 890L


Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.4 ounces


Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.76 x 5.08 x 1.28 inches


Best Sellers Rank: #36,233 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #772 in Coming of Age Fiction (Books) #1,256 in Classic Literature & Fiction #3,170 in Literary Fiction (Books)


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Top Amazon Reviews

    • Very real and very relevant
Dickens has such a gift of character development that exceeds most. He gives you such detail that you can truly feel you know this person. I am no writer so this review will not do justice. What I loved about this was how the story and the characters were as applicable today as they were in Dickens time. The judgement of people different from us, the behavior of unrequited love, making bad decisions over and again. There are characters that you feel deeply for and love and others you want to shake by the shoulders and others you wouldn’t mind if tragedy befell them. Pip is a character that regardless of his status cannot seem to make a wise decision. Perhaps it is because he can only think of one person and has no space for no one else. Or, he is just selfish? Others suffer his mindlessness or selfishness with grace and mercy. The ending was great in my mind because it isn’t what you might expect or want for the ending, but it is very real. This story could easily be as relevant today with the similar attitudes and people’s personalities. Thoroughly enjoyed this and highly recommend to anyone who loves true literature. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on December 19, 2024 by GatormanTX
    • Redemptive Themes are Always Among my Favorites in Books
Pip, the main character in Charles Dickens's Great Expectations, writes the story in first person as a middle aged man looking back on his life. Pip's parents die when he is young making him an orphan. Pip is "brought up by hand" by his sister, who treats him with scorn. His sister's lack of love, however, is tempered by her husband Joe, a blacksmith. Joe is a simple, uneducated man and Pip's only "friend" during childhood. Pip commiserates with Joe about his sister's verbal thrashings, trying to make the best of his unhappy upbringing. Early in the story, Pip has an encounter with a convict in the cemetery among the marshes near his home. Unbeknownst to him, this man would be the source for his "Great Expectations" later in life. One day Pip is invited to the home of Ms. Havisham. Ms. Havisham is a single, eccentric, old woman who stopped living in the real world many years earlier when she was spurned by her lover on her wedding day. Ms. Havisham has adopted the beautiful Estella, and from the moment Pip meets her, he is infatuated with her beauty. Estella represents wealth, education, success, and opportunity--things Pip values but thinks he will never have. Dissatisfaction within himself grows as he wants to be more in life than a partner with Joe in the forge. Pip becomes unhappy not only with himself, but also with Joe, who represents what he does not want to be--uneducated and simple. Failing to appreciate Joe's moral character, Pip's world view begins to change as he sees education as something to be attained--the sure way out of his wretched life and the means by which he could woo the object of his unmerited affections, Estella. Pip's life changes dramatically when he is visited by a well respected and fiercely admired lawyer, Mr. Jaggers, who brings him an unusual message. Mr. Jaggers tells Pip he is to receive "Great Expectations," but the benefactor is to remain anonymous until and only if they choose to reveal their identity. Pip mistakenly assumes the benefactor is Ms. Havisham, and the manipulating, self serving woman does nothing to dissuade him from his incorrect assumptions. The story takes Pip to London where he lives a life of excess and discards many virtues from his childhood. He no longer wants anything to do with Joe and believes his future course has been immutably set--that he is to marry the beautiful Estella. He shares his indulgences with his new friend, Herbert, whose acquaintance he had made years earlier at Ms. Havisham's place. The two of them rack up excessive debt as Pip sees himself as "a man in waiting" for all his fortunes to come to pass. Things are not what they seem, however. It is eventually revealed that the benefactor is not Ms. Havisham but the convict, Mr. Magwitch, whom Pip had met in the cemetery many years earlier when he was a young, impressionable boy. Pip is confronted face to face with the despised convict, hounded by the remembrances of him torturing him in the cemetery, dreams that lingered, causing him much consternation. But now he has to accept the undeniable truth that his turn of fortune is not because of Ms. Havisham's provision, but the despicable convict's desire to make him a gentleman. The convict wants his life to be redeemed for something good and chooses Pip to be that vehicle. Through a series of events, Pip acknowledges the inexcusable way he has treated Joe and wants to make amends. Before he can accomplish this, however, other happenings complicate his life. The convict, now in England, needs Pip's protection. Pip must make a way for Magwitch to leave England without being discovered. While Pip hides him with a trusted friend, Pip comes to realize that the convict he had earlier despised has more redemptive qualities than Pip has within himself. As he makes provision for the convict's escape, Pip sees Magwitch change for the better, and in so doing, Pip also changes. Instead of hating the convict, Pip grows to love him. The self centeredness of Pip's indulgences is replaced with care, not only for the convict, but in growing degrees, for others. In the process of trying to escape, the convict is attacked by his long-time archrival and enemy. As a result, Magwitch is severely injured, discovered by the authorities, put on trial and convicted, but dies from his injuries before his death sentence can be carried out. Magwitch's estate is turned over to the authorities to make restitution for past wrongs. Pip is left penniless and obligingly accepts that his Great Expectations and source of income have dissipated into nothing. Meanwhile, Estella marries someone else--a man whom Pip despises. A few years earlier, Pip had secretly made arrangements for his friend Herbert to have a small expectation out of his "Great Expectations," amounting to a sizable sum of money. When it becomes known to Pip that he will lose his "Great Expectations" to the authorities, his only thought is for his friend. Pip returns to visit Ms. Havisham and requests, in a show of repentance for the wrongs she had done to him, a sum of money that Pip could again secretly provide to Herbert. Herbert wisely uses this money to successfully buy into a business venture. He later marries and moves overseas in his business pursuits--none of which would have been possible without Pip's anonymous provision to Herbert. Pip credits this as the only redeeming thing he has accomplished, reflecting on all the other things he did or didn't do that could have been used for good. Pip falls ill following the death of his convict friend, Magwitch, and Joe comes to England to care for him until he is well. Joe surreptitiously leaves early one morning when Pip is sufficiently recovered, and when Pip wakes up, he discovers Joe has paid off all his creditors. Pip immediately returns home in penitence to confess to Joe all his past wrongs, realizing that Joe is a better man than he. He recognizes in his now humble state that his "Great Expectations" deceived him into using it as a source of pride against Joe. Upon arriving home, Pip's expectations are not what he envisioned. His sister who raised him by hand has long since died as a result of an attack on her by the evil Orlick. His childhood friend and confidant, Biddy, has just married Joe. In the end, redemption works its way for good. Joe and Biddy are happily married and the sore memories of Pip's sister are forgotten. Pip returns to London and within a month, leaves England and joins Herbert's firm, Clarriker and Company, overseas. Pip lives abroad with Herbert and his wife, and after successfully making partner, eleven years later, returns to his boyhood home in England. He discovers Joe and Biddy now have a son who reminds him of himself. Before bidding Joe and Biddy a final farewell, Pip makes one last trip to the Havisham place, the old woman having died many years earlier. Pip discovers Estella in the garden, a chance meeting since she no longer lives there. The old house and brewery have been torn down and sold off except for the garden enclosed by the ivy covered wall. Years of a stormy, failed marriage have softened Estella's vindictive, prideful nature, and she confesses that "suffering has been stronger than all other teaching and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be." The reader is left to ponder whether Pip and Estella ever marry because Pip says, "I saw no parting from her." In the end, Pip learns much about what matters--wisdom he would not have possessed if he had stayed working at Joe's forge. As a middle aged narrator looking back, there is sadness but sweetness about what he has lost because of what he has gained. Perhaps the reader is the real winner, having seen redemption on so many levels within each character. In the end, if we are honest, we can identify these shortcomings in ourselves. If Pip can work out his "Great Expectations" to bring redemption, perhaps we can, also--that is, again, if we are honest. Our sinful nature will always be there, but if we look for good, God will not disappoint us. Maybe "Great Expectations" will not only find us, but redemption will be there, too, just as it was in Pip. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on March 2, 2010 by Lorilyn Roberts
    • Social climbers get their smackdown, and society doesn't get off too easily either.
Critics have described Great Expectations as Dickens's darkest and bitterest novel. They'll get no argument from me. It's also the only Dickens novel I have read so far in which I thoroughly disliked the protagonist. Dickens didn’t mean the reader to like him. This is a "Bildungsroman," in which a man looks back over his life, describing his early mistakes and why he made them. Pip, whose name tells us from the outset that he is a lightweight, doesn't like his own younger self very much either. We understand what made him that way: the only mother figure he ever had was his tyrannical sister, who never showed him any affection and complained constantly that he was a burden. So when Estella despises him for his working-class clothes and speech, perhaps that's the only way he knows for a woman to relate to him. But he does have a good parental figure in Joe, who could have been a role model if Pip had possessed the good sense to learn from him. Everyone in this novel (except for Joe and Biddy) is either a social climber or desperately clinging to their rung of society. Magwich has managed to make an honest fortune, but knows that he can never pass for a gentleman, and so wants to live that dream vicariously. Miss Havisham, who received not only a heartbreaking disappointment but an abrupt social demotion when her fiancé left her at the altar, wants a re-do through Estella. Let us pause to consider that a broken engagement for a woman of the middle or upper classes in Victorian England was a much worse social disaster than it would be now, because if the man broke the engagement, the woman's chances of getting another proposal were as near zero as makes no matter. Why? Because every gossip in her social circle would start to speculate about what scandal the fiancé must have learned about her or her family. Did she have a mad aunt in the attic somewhere? An “unsuitable romance” in her past? Perhaps there’s more to Miss H’s aggressively wearing her virginal white wedding gown than just a desire to literally and figuratively stop the clock. Just before she was about to take that final step up the social ladder into the status of a married woman, the ladder was pulled out from under her. And then there’s the supporting cast of people like Pumblechook, eager to latch onto anyone else’s success like a lamprey eel, and poor Mr. Wopsle, who dreams of being a great actor. GE has a lot of structural similarities to David Copperfield, but David was always likeable, even when he was trusting the wrong friends and pursuing the wrong woman. Aunt Betsy, like Miss Havisham, had been cruelly jilted in her youth, and she also wanted to get a do-over by raising a woman to be less naïve than she had been, but she does get on with her life and grow into a wise mentor for the young David. She’s the one who clearly sees that his marriage to Dora won’t work out. None of the women in DC are man-hating gorgons like Miss Havisham and Estella, although both of the latter are allowed a little redemption. Miss Havisham repents of wasting her life on self-pity and revenge, but it’s not enough to prevent her and her wedding dress from going up in flames. Estella, after a disastrous marriage, has been smacked upside the head with reality much as Pip has, and there might be a happy future for them. Might. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on August 29, 2022 by Susan E. Wood
    • It’s all connected
This is only the second Dickens novel I’ve read, the first being A Tale of Two Cities (and I guess A Christmas Carol if that counts, but it’s just a novella). There’s something very neat about the way everything ties together here, and at times while reading I felt like it was all a bit much. But once I’d finished, the impression it left on me as a whole was pretty profound. Pip was incredibly frustrating to begin with, as I guess Dickens intended. By the end, my heart really broke for him. There was no surprise inheritance in the end, which was a bit…surprising - but it’s much better that way. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2025 by Dave Patterson

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