Great Expectations
Charles Dickens (1861)
“A poor boy is given a secret fortune and ruins every relationship that matters — then has to figure out who he actually is.”
At a Glance
Pip, a blacksmith's apprentice in the English marshes, receives a mysterious fortune from an anonymous benefactor and moves to London to become a gentleman. He falls in love with Estella — a cold, beautiful girl trained by the eccentric Miss Havisham to break men's hearts — and abandons his loyal friends in pursuit of class and status. When Pip discovers his benefactor is actually Magwitch, the convict he sheltered as a child, his illusions about gentility collapse. He helps Magwitch escape, loses the fortune, and learns — almost too late — that Joe Gargery and the humble life he fled were worth more than everything he chased.
Read full summary →Why This Book Matters
Great Expectations was serialized in All the Year Round from December 1860 to August 1861 and was one of the most successful serials Dickens ever published — circulation of the magazine jumped during its run. It is now considered one of the supreme examples of the bildungsroman in English literature, and routinely appears on lists of the greatest novels in the language. Its exploration of class mobility and its psychological cost reads more urgently in each successive generation.
Diction Profile
Variable — Dickens ranges from burlesque comedy (Mrs. Joe, Pumblechook) to high Gothic (Satis House) to legal precision (Jaggers) to dialect poetry (Joe)
High