Great Expectations

"Great Expectations" is one of the most famous and much-loved novels by the great master of Victorian prose, Charles Dickens, that has become one of English languages greatest and most recognized stories. Here Dickens tells the story of the growth and development of young Philip Pirrip ("Pip") who begins his life as an orphan, neglected and abused, by his sister. Through a series of chance encounters, Pip rises above his disadvantaged beginnings to become a gentleman in every sense of the word. In this gripping tale of crime and guilt, revenge and reward, the compelling characters include Magwitch, the fearful and fearsome convict; Estella, whose beauty is excelled only by her haughtiness; and the embittered Miss Havisham, an eccentric jilted bride. Throughout the narrative, typical Dickensian themes emerge: wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and the eventual triumph of good over evil. It also reveals the novelist's bittersweet understanding of the extent to which our deepest moral dilemmas are born of our own obsessions and illusions.