Great Expectations is a bildungsroman which depicts the personal growth
and emotional development of an orphan nicknamed Pip. It is Charles
Dickens's second novel, after David Copperfield, to be fully
narrated in the first person. It was first published as a serial in Charles Dickens's weekly periodical All the Year Round, from 1
December 1860 to August 1861. In October 1861,
the novel was published in three volumes.
It is set in the misty marshes of Kent, and in London, in the early to mid-1800s, and
contains some memorable scenes, such as the opening, in a
graveyard, where the young Pip is approached by the escaped prisoner, Abel Magwitch. Great
Expectations is full of intense imagery – poverty, prison ships and
chains, and fights to the death – and has a variegated cast of
characters who have entered popular culture. These include the spectral Miss Havisham, and the cold and gorgeous Estella. The themes of the novel include
wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and the final triumph of good over
evil. Charles Dickens
felt Great
Expectations was his best work, calling it "a very fine idea".
