Great Expectations (1860–1861) is Charles Dickens's thirteenth novel. The orphan Pip, raised by his sister and the blacksmith Joe, receives a fortune from an unknown benefactor, goes to London to become a gentleman, and learns painfully what makes a person truly good.
The story
As a boy on the Kent marshes, Pip helps an escaped convict, Magwitch. He is then invited to the decaying house of Miss Havisham, jilted on her wedding day, and falls in love with her cold ward, Estella.
When a lawyer announces that Pip has great expectations from a secret benefactor, he assumes it is Miss Havisham. The truth, revealed years later, overturns his snobbery and his hopes.
Themes
The novel is a study of ambition, guilt and class: Pip is ashamed of Joe, the kindest man in the book, as soon as he becomes rich.
Miss Havisham, who has stopped all her clocks at the moment of her betrayal and still wears her wedding dress, is one of Dickens's most haunting creations.
Publication
The novel was serialised weekly in Dickens's own magazine, All the Year Round, from December 1860 to August 1861, to rescue the magazine's falling sales.
David Lean's 1946 film, with John Mills as Pip, is considered one of the finest screen adaptations of Dickens.
Anecdotes
Two endings
Dickens first wrote an unhappy ending in which Pip and Estella part for good. On the advice of the novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton, he replaced it with a more hopeful one.
Written in the first person
Great Expectations is, with David Copperfield, one of only two Dickens novels told entirely in the first person.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Pip's benefactor?
The convict Magwitch, whom Pip helped as a child.
Who is Miss Havisham?
A rich woman jilted on her wedding day, who stopped all her clocks and raised Estella to break men's hearts.
Why are there two endings?
Dickens changed his original ending on the advice of Edward Bulwer-Lytton.