Great Expectations

by Charles Dickens Narrated by Charles Finch

Overview

"Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens is a novel written in the mid-19th century during the Victorian era. The story follows the life of a young orphan named Philip "Pip" Pirrip as he navigates social classes, personal ambitions, and the complexities of human relationships.

The narrative begins with Pip's fateful encounter with an escaped convict, setting the stage for themes of ambition, morality, and transformation. In the opening of the novel, Pip wanders through a churchyard, reflecting on his family history as revealed by the tombstones. His innocent musings are abruptly interrupted by a terrifying confrontation with a convict who demands food and a file, instilling fear in Pip.

As Pip grapples with the fear of being caught stealing food for the convict and the horror of his surroundings, we are drawn into the bleak marshes that significantly shape his childhood. This intense encounter not only establishes a sense of danger but also foreshadows Pip's future entanglements with crime and class disparity, as he later must navigate his relationships with individuals from both the convict's world and his own lower-class upbringing.

Editorial Reviews

Saturday Review

Mr. Dickens may be reasonably proud of these volumes.... he has written a story that is new, original, powerful and very entertaining.... It is in his best vein, and although it is too slight, and bears many traces of hasty writing, it is quite worthy to stand beside Martin Chuzzlewit and David Copperfield.
—July 20, 1861

Carol Hanbery MacKay University of Texas - Austin

"It is high time for this Dickens masterpiece to receive the kind of critical and contextual attention that this edition of Great Expectations affords. The editors provide essential information about Dickens's compositional as well as publishing practices, and they further support this background with a sampling of the lively contemporary dialogue about the text in the periodicals of the day. They issues raised by the novel—namely class and language, and crime and punishment—are amply explored by pertinent historical documentation, including highly-charged autobiographical writing by Dickens himself that was not available to his contemporary readership. Moreover, the introduction expertly guides the reader though the application of these materials in a creative and inviting manner. Law and Pinnington have gathered together an impressive array of contemporary documents to promote an informed reading of this classic text...In particular, the maps and illustrations of the novel's various settings allow the non-expert to quickly gain insights which should lead to intriguing arguments about how the novel has worked—for its own time as well as our own. I especially commend the editors for their resourceful choices related to the Victorian conception of what constitutes a true gentleman—itself perhaps the key question that helps to unlock the novel."

Sally Mitchell Temple University

The notes to this edition of Great Expectations are extremely helpful, and the supporting materials are useful, clear, and well-selected. Law and Pinnington have put together an edition that takes into account what the contemporary (and especially, the non-British) reader needs in order to appreciate the novel. All in all, this is an excellent edition.”

Product Details

BN ID:	2940192992821
Publisher:	Pets Perfectionist
Publication date:	03/31/2025
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Chapter I.


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. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.


I give Pirrip as my father's family name, on the authority of his tombstone
and my sister – Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As I never saw
my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for
their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies
regarding what they were like, were unreasonably derived from their
tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father's, gave me an odd idea
that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the
character and turn of the inscription, "Also Georgiana Wife of the Above,"
I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly. To
five little stone lozenges, each about a foot and a half long, which were
arranged in a neat row beside their grave, and were sacred to the memory of
five little brothers of mine – who gave up trying to get a living exceedingly
early in that universal struggle – I am indebted for a belief I religiously
entertained that they had all been born on their backs with their hands in
their trousers-pockets, and had never taken them out in this state of
existence.


Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within as the river wound,
twenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad impression of the
identity of things, seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw
afternoon towards evening. At such a time Ifound out for certain, that
this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard; and that Philip
Pirrip, late of this parish, and also Georgiana wife of the above, were
dead and buried; and that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and
Roger, infant children of the aforesaid, were also dead and buried; and
that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dykes
and 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 distant
savage lair from which the wind was rushing, was the sea; and that the
small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry, was
Pip.


"Hold your noise!" cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among
the graves at the side of the church porch. "Keep still, you little devil,
or I'll cut your throat!"


A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man with
no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A
man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by
stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who
limped, and shivered, and glared and growled; and whose teeth chattered in
his head as he seized me by the chin.


"Oh! Don't cut my throat, sir," I pleaded in terror. "Pray don't do it,
sir."


"Tell us your name!" said the man. "Quick!"


"Pip, sir."


"Once more," said the man, staring at me. "Give it mouth!"


From the Paperback edition.

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