Great Expectations

By Charles Dickens

Contributors to this volume:
Raimund Borgmeier
Crystal Downing
Anthony Esolen
Michael Hanke
Mitchell Kalpakgian
Jill Kriegel
Robert P. Lewis
Regis Martin

Pope John Paul II described Dickens' books as ""filled with love for the poor and a sense of social regeneration . . . warm with imagination and humanity"". Such true charity permeates Dickens' novels and ultimately drives the characters either to choose regeneration or risk disintegration. In Great Expectations, Pip-symbolic of the pilgrim convert-gains both improved fortunes and a growth in wisdom, but as he acquires the latter, he must relinquish the former-ending with a wealth of profound goodness, not of worldly goods.

That the Dickensian message was a Christian one is unmistakable. Reminiscent of an Augustinian model, one of reflection, conversion, and moral improvement, Pip undergoes an internal change that manifests itself in his profound contrition for his earlier deeds and his equally profound resolution to make amends. As we travel with Pip, we find that Dickens leads us to an acceptance of worldly limitations and an anticipation of final salvation.

The exciting new edition of Dickens's classic novel includes critical essays by some of today's leading Dickens scholars.

The Ignatius Critical Editions represent a tradition-oriented alternative to popular textbook series such as the Norton Critical Editions or Oxford World Classics, and are designed to concentrate on traditional readings of the Classics of world literature. While many modern critical editions have succumbed to the fads of modernism and post-modernism, this series will concentrate on tradition-oriented criticism of these great works.
Edited by acclaimed literary biographer, Joseph Pearce, the Ignatius Critical Editions will ensure that traditional moral readings of the works are given prominence, instead of the feminist, or deconstructionist readings that often proliferate in other series of 'critical editions'. As such, they represent a genuine extension of consumer-choice, enabling educators, students and lovers of good literature to buy editions of classic literary works without having to 'buy into' the ideologies of secular fundamentalism.
The series is ideal for anyone wishing to understand great works of western civilization, enabling the modern reader to enjoy these classics in the company of some of the finest literature professors alive today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ignatius Press
• Release date: Aug 6, 2010
• ISBN: 9781681492407

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens was born in 1812 and grew up in poverty. This experience influenced ‘Oliver Twist’, the second of his fourteen major novels, which first appeared in 1837. When he died in 1870, he was buried in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey as an indication of his huge popularity as a novelist, which endures to this day.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Jill Kriegel

Florida Atlantic University

When we contemplate the Dickensian city—and we must, for each novel is not unlike a city unto itself—we might envision a two-tier London. In this world, the lower tier is peopled by the Sikeses and the Heeps and the Jonas Chuzzlewits, the upper by the Brownlows and the Wickfields and the Tapleys. If we assign the selfishness and arrogance and irreverence of the lower to the earthly city and the charity and humility and reverence of the upper to the Heavenly City, we recognize the Augustinian model, the only destination of salvation, the City that, while on its pilgrimage home, lives a life of righteousness, based on its faith, having the attainment of [God’s] peace in view in every good action it performs in relation to God, and in relation to a neighbor, since the life of a city is inevitably a social life.¹ This City is open to wayfarers seeking to shed their earthly baggage, to amend their lives, to achieve the upper tier through patient and willing service and self-sacrifice.

Charles Dickens was born in 1812. In his childhood home, religion was not a primary focus. His father, a Protestant, was not particularly devout. Charles and his seven siblings were baptized, but they received no formal religious education. His elder sister, Fanny, was quite religious and eventually married an evangelical minister, and Dickens’ mother too acquired a certain religious zeal. However, rather than fostering in Charles an increased interest in religion, their fervor for the Church as an institution served only to foster his impatience for what he saw as the hypocritical injustices that resulted from human greed and arrogance. In consequence, as a young man, Dickens shunned nominal Christianity, critical of the moral tepidity that he perceived as its complement.

Pope John Paul I described Dickens’ books as filled with love for the poor and a sense of social regeneration . . . warm with imagination and humanity.² Such true charity permeates Dickens’ novels and ultimately drives the characters either to choose regeneration or risk disintegration. Odyssey-esque in nature, the Dickensian protagonist’s path is one on which he gains improved fortunes, wisdom, or both.³ In Great Expectations, Pip, symbolic of the pilgrim convert, gains both, but as he acquires the latter, he must relinquish the former—ending with a wealth of profound goodness, not of worldly goods. That the Dickensian message is a Christian one is unmistakable. Reminiscent of yet another Augustinian model, one of reflection, conversion, and moral improvement,⁴ Pip undergoes internal change that manifests itself in his profound contrition for his earlier deeds and his equally profound resolution to make amends. While modern dissenters will highlight Dickens’ distaste for religious institutions and the scars of his upbringing, the truth is that he knew the two cities, as he clearly and consistently prescribes the hope of the one over the despair of the other. With this in mind, as we travel with Pip, we will note Pip’s moral growth and, in the end, find that Dickens’ original ending,⁵ one accepting of worldly limitations and anticipatory of salvation, is the more fitting.

Dickens’ deep concerns and social conscience echoed in his earlier novels: in Oliver Twist, his horror at the abuses of orphans at the hands of the law and the local church; in Martin Chuzzlewit, his overwhelming concern about greed’s damaging consequences, both personal and professional; in Dombey and Son, the ruinous effects of overvalued commercialism; in David Copperfield, through his autobiographical protagonist, the miseries of his own youth—owing to his father’s shortcomings and his own subsequent humiliation and lack of education. In all of these, after numerous, often treacherous tests, the hero finally receives palpable, tangible gifts of love and recognition for his goodness. Not so with Pip. An inner call to righteousness beckons him from his ephemeral, sensible world of great expectations and guides him toward the eternal, intelligible world of Truth. True, there is not in Pip an audible happiness at the close of his life’s confession; there is, however, a marked peace and a gratitude for the understanding of the necessary sacrifices from which that peace sprang.

G. K. Chesterton applauded Dickens’ thirst for things as humble, as human, as laughable as that daily bread for which we cry to God,⁶ and, indeed, in Great Expectations, a late novel often mistouted for its darkness and pessimism, we will note that Dickens’ moral message rests in the humility and humanity that come with the protagonist’s inner conversion from a life of self to a life of genuine charity. Ultimately, this is a novel of hope, not one of despair. Chesterton points out that, yes, of all Dickens’ novels, "the only book to which he gave the name Great Expectations was the only book in which the expectation was never realized,⁷ but he notes too that the novel’s best moments chronicle the vacillations of the hero between the humble life to which he owes everything, and the gorgeous life from which he expects something".⁸ At the novel’s close, it is the end of the vacillating and the thankful return to humility that stamp Great Expectations with the Dickensian brand of optimism.

Perhaps one of Chesterton’s greatest attractions to Dickens was Dickens’ paradoxical combinations of insistent criticism of the social order and persistent faith in the individual. Interestingly, Dickens’ father is the initial source of both the chastisement and the hopefulness. It was John Dickens who prompted his son’s hope for success when he showed the nine-year-old Charles Gadshill Place and told his smitten son that with hard work he might one day live in such a house. Alongside such blossoms of promise, the seeds of societal concerns were also sown, as Charles endured debtor’s prison and workhouse drudgery as a result of his father’s financial improvidence. A laissez-faire attitude and a tendency to excess and overgenerosity rendered John Dickens incapable of supporting his family. Yet, despite his failings, he was a faithful, warmhearted, and jovial man—qualities that surely become the saving grace of many of his son’s role model characters: Samuel Pickwick, Mr. Brownlow, John Jarndyce, Joe Gargery, and even Abel Magwitch, just to name a few. Even in the dismal atmosphere of the Marshalsea prison, John Dickens was known for his optimism, leading a committee to improve conditions for the inmates. His admirable behavior earned him early release, but his continued pecuniary irresponsibility earned him chronic domestic instability. Thus, Charles Dickens’ youth was a montage of shifting scenes—from festive gatherings of family and friends to long lonely hours in Warren’s Blacking Factory, from bitter-turned-blissful hours reading the beloved books his father gave him to humiliation bred of his family’s predicament.⁹ In keeping with this ebb and flow of earthly existence, by its very nature susceptible to perpetual change and growth, Dickens creates characters to navigate the worldly channels. To be sure, some characters are better equipped than others, but the joy and value of reading Dickens comes through seeing the motivations and results of their navigation. We look, as Dickens did in his society, for the beacons of hope who can guide the others on a straight path.

Though he was a journalist first and a novelist second, Dickens recognized the great moral potential of fiction, an understanding well elucidated by his works. So many centuries earlier, Augustine also averred the enormous power of literature. While the saint was never a writer of fiction, he employed the plot of his life and its analogues in biblical and classical literature to create from his own particular conversion a timeless lesson in universal truth.¹⁰ Thus, as we read Great Expectations, if we consider the prophetic wanderings of the Prodigal Son and Aeneas and Augustine, we are struck by the narrative parallels: the immature immorality, the troubled departure, the licentious lure, the remorseful return, and, finally, the contrite reparation of each protagonist.¹¹ Dickens created characters, some of whom would exemplify the path of dark corruption, others who would exemplify the path of light and goodness, and still others—the group to which Pip belongs—who mark a soul’s journey from one to the other, from dreadful possibility to joyful hope, from the corporeal to the ethereal.

On the opening page of Great Expectations, a mature Pip recounts for us his visit to his family’s graves and recalls how his younger brothers all died very young, giving up the universal struggle.¹² Interestingly, throughout Great Expectations, Pip plods through life under the weight of the universal struggle, which in the Dickensian microcosm pits haughty self-regard against humble charity—the earthly city against the heavenly one. In this Dickensian world, Pip—whose gradual moral growth is unmistakable—survives, owing to his increasing willingness to put others before himself. True, young Pip, so enveloped by his selfish great expectations, is often blind to true goodness. Yet, repeatedly in his narrative we note emerging glimmers of his evolving nascent conscience, and we hear the retrospective confessions of the adult Pip as he scolds himself for his childhood, adolescent, and young adult crimes against others, such as Joe, Biddy, Herbert, and Magwitch. Always his victims are those of the faithful, true community that Pip will ultimately embrace as he shuns the fickle, false one. Indeed, using his own misdeeds as a negative example, Pip quietly proclaims a call to communal order, that is, to humility and the humane treatment of even the lowest in society, a call that drove Dickens’ writing.

As a retrospective Pip begins his tale, and we are introduced to a young boy who records in his memory his first brush with fear of the outside world and what he perceives as evil personified. On this memorable raw afternoon (see p. 8), we embark with Pip on what will be a succession of expeditions that, while seemingly increasingly refined in nature, will be as raw as—and perhaps rawer than—this first bitter outing, that is, until Pip’s own conversion. In the graveyard on this prophetic afternoon, young Pip is suddenly scared by a fearful man (see p. 8), a prisoner, so hungry that he threatens Pip’s life as he begs for food. Even this early, however, we are given a glimpse of Pip’s moral potential. For while we hear the child plead, Don’t cut my throat, sir (see p. 8), we hear too our mature narrator acknowledge his tyrant’s pitiful predicament; this man, he notes, this Abel Magwitch, has been smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars (see p. 8). So scourged, the prisoner limp[s] and shiver[s] on the cold marshes. As a boy, despite his palpable terror in this man’s presence, Pip stills intuits and regrets the man’s woes and needs.

Pip’s sister and surrogate mother, Mrs. Joe, holds tight to a selfish asperity, harshly bemoaning her vocation of lowly wife. She sees hope, if at all, only in the possibility of Pip’s expectations, which will free her of her domestic duties. While she partially fulfills her duties by tending to the household cooking and cleaning, she is a poor model of humility and an even poorer model of charity. In stark contrast, Pip’s surrogate father, Joe Gargery, is a model of humility and charity. Indeed, the mature Pip acknowledges him as a mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish, dear fellow (see p. 13). While Joe works to protect Pip from Pip’s sister’s cruelty and selfishness, he is, in many ways, unsuccessful. The same holds true as Joe tries to dissuade Pip from relinquishing his soul to Estella’s haughty, heartless expectations. [L]ies is lies, Joe tells Pip, and they come from the father of lies (see p. 90). However wise these words, considering young Pip’s disturbed and unthankful state (see p. 91), they have no power over the vigor of vanity that calls Pip away. Thus, while Joe is a symbol of true goodness, he is ineffectual on Pip’s early journey and is remembered by the adult Pip as a sort of Hercules in strength, and also in weakness (see p. 13). Perhaps Joe’s greatest weakness—the one that Pip most abuses—is his ever-forgiving, ever-patient support of Pip, even when Pip is at his most selfish. Of course, by the novel’s close, we will assert Joe’s valuable role in Pip’s conversion, but, as well intentioned as Joe is, we cannot ignore him as an early impediment to Pip’s moral progress. This progress, of which we see faint potential in the graveyard, will involve Pip’s transformation from a seeker of great expectations to a finder of truth.

Chesterton doubts if, in the kindly rationalism of his epoch, [Dickens] kept any belief in a personal devil in his theology, but he certainly created a personal devil in every one of his books.¹³ In Great Expectations, this devil is not personified but manifests himself in societal gentlemanly ambition, wherein exists a clear absence of good. Watching young Pip grow from his understated, yet evident, concern for the prisoner to his shunning of Joe and Biddy and to his initial revulsion at Magwitch’s resurfacing, we are witness to a disintegrating soul. Still, if we are faithfully open to Dickensian hope, we will hold fast to Chesterton’s reminder that Christianity said that any man could be a saint if he chose and that the Victorian era was a world that encouraged anybody to be anything. And in England and literature its living expression was Dickens.¹⁴ In this novel, we see Dickens’ encouragement of and faith in man to transcend his culture’s idolatry of utilitarian prospects as he ascends toward eternal peace.

First, however, Pip is swept up into the maelstrom of worldly progress. Once he is sent on his first visit to Miss Havisham, his course for life is forever changed; he embarks on a path towards making [him]self uncommon (see p. 92). So affected is he by Miss Havisham’s ward Estella, hard and haughty and capricious to the last degree (see p. 218), that he can no longer bear to be considered a common labouring-boy (pp. 77, 83). In its disrespect for all other moral responsibilities, Pip’s infatuation with Estella is his most tightly bound chain to the earthly city, mimicking Aeneas’ with Dido and Augustine’s with his concubine.¹⁵ In his obsession to win Estella’s approval, self-improvement dominates Pip’s desire to rise above his class,¹⁶ while Estella’s critical reminders of his inferiority further fuel his drive. Perhaps the familial comfort he lacks, under the cold roof of his sister, can be replaced by becoming his own and Estella’s hero. Such glory, as we will see, is not to come in this world, not in this earthly city; instead, for Pip as for Augustine, childhood visions of success are unmasked and revealed as false, to be replaced later by visions of eternity, unchanging and true.

For now, though, Pip’s aspiration toward and expectation of heroic gentility are driven by ambition. To define himself, he is relying on others whom he views as more worthy,¹⁷ ignorant of the reality that these earthly judges are blind to truth. Blind himself, Pip’s false assumptions are many. He quickly responds to Jaggers’ call to London, believing that Miss Havisham is responsible for his sudden fortune and in generous support of his love for Estella. In his misjudgment of character—unaware as he is of Miss Havisham’s scorn for men and its profound effect on Estella—Pip’s overwhelming need to climb in social status toward wealth and the bitter Estella leads him to spurn Biddy, his loyal and caring teacher, friend, and possible love interest. The wise Biddy knows the inevitable regrets Pip will face on his crusade to be a gentleman (see p. 159), just as well as she knows that Estella is not worth gaining over (see p. 161). We see the moral divide, the chasm between the young man who is chained to the earthly city and one who sojourns with the Heavenly City, no more clearly than when, on his final night in his childhood bedroom, Pip notes much the same confused division of mind between it and the better rooms to which I was going, as I had been in so often between the forge and Miss Havisham’s, and Biddy and Estella (see p. 180). He cannot see the intelligible for the sensible, the eternal for the fleeting, the truth for the lies.

True, Pip often acknowledges Biddy’s wisdom and goodness, but blinded by his desires, he responds to her defensively as he prepares for his new life in London: You are envious, Biddy, and grudging. You are dissatisfied on account of my rise in fortune (see p. 184). Having erected such a shield to others, in order to preserve a sole focus on self, Pip cannot be lured—either by Joe’s fatherly tenderness or by Biddy’s nurturing influence—from his rise in social standing. The adult Pip tells us how, on the night before his departure, he decided that he would walk to the coach alone, without Joe. In keeping with Dickens’ message, these arrogant, selfish thoughts fade into his feelings of remorse, and the next day en route, his tears and his internal tug of war are intense. Surely, these moral deliberations foreshadow hope for Pip’s soul.

Once Pip is settled in London, his drive resolutely continues. He cannot waver from his inner promise to prove himself to Estella. Thus, he cannot discern the obvious truth in the philosophy of his roommate and soon-to-be business partner, the good Herbert Pocket: [N]o man who was not a true gentleman at heart, ever was, since the world began, a true gentleman in manner. . . . [N]o varnish can hide the grain of the wood (see p. 223). Surely manifest in all of Pip’s actions is his determination to become a gentleman—in manner only, of course—for Estella and, thus, to be ever-upwardly mobile. As a symbol of his capitalistic times, Pip has no time to reflect meaningfully on the value of the people he has left compared to the material possessions he has acquired. His wandering, acquisitive, lustful pursuit is his perpetual problem; he looks down for accessible worldly particulars, never up for the more precious universals. He does indeed achieve the reputation of a first-rate man of business (see p. 336), but he is unwary and frivolous and, therefore—believing he has found freedom in unlimited credit—becomes at once a slave, into new debt immediately (see p. 337). It is the adult Pip who acknowledges the connection between his imprudent finances and his imprudent affections: [I]t was impossible to dissociate her presence from all those wretched hankerings after money and gentility (see p. 228). From this adult vantage point, he recognizes his habits as an expensive device (see p. 337), and we note the moral as well as the physical expense, as still-young Pip leads himself and Herbert into insolvency. In time, we hear Pip avow that his reckless behavior ended in both a lack of money and a lack of love.

It is by virtue of these and many other hardships that Pip, at last, reevaluates his life and amends his path. Undoubtedly, Pip’s epiphany comes with the reappearance of Magwitch, his unexpected, initially unwanted second father (see p. 384). His bright vision of Miss Havisham’s beneficent role is shattered, as is his dream of Estella as the greatest of his expectations. Jaggers, all this time, has been employed by Magwitch, not by Miss Havisham. Suddenly, Pip’s attention is forced from his self-indulgent fantasies to the care of this convict-turned-benefactor: All the truth of my position came flashing on me; and its disappointments, dangers, disgraces, consequences of all kinds, rushed in in such a multitude that I was borne down by them (see p. 384). Enveloped, then, by this analogue to the Augustinian Take it and read (tolle lege) moment of conversion,¹⁸ he sees the error of his ways. He had abandoned Joe and Biddy to satisfy his selfish desires and the haughty whims of his supposed benefactress, and now he is faced with the debt—of commitment, not of money—he owes to his actual caretaker. Magwitch, still wanted for his alleged crimes, requires Pip’s full attention; Pip must, therefore, subdue his puerile, worldly desires and take responsibility for another person’s well-being.

As Pip prepares to turn from self to other, it is well worth an aside of sorts to reflect upon the roles of two secondary characters who, as agents in Pip’s journey, are surely meaningful. Jaggers draws Pip toward his London existence, and Wemmick, though himself still London-bound, awakens in him the value of escape. In Jaggers’ compulsive hand washing, we witness a Pilatesque figure.¹⁹ As with his work for other criminals, Jaggers is never completely at ease with his services to Magwitch, but he renders them to earn the pay he desires, just as Pilate progresses with the crucifixion to earn the continued support of the people. Both Jaggers and Pilate, while they have some semblance of a conscience, are tied to this world, not willing to make any personal sacrifices in their lives. In such a state, these men cannot find peace in the earthly city, nor are they destined for the heavenly one. Peace, then, comes only through a surrender to humility. It is in Dickens’ creation of Jaggers’ clerk, Wemmick, that we note a bridge between the earthly and the heavenly in the illustration of a seemingly eccentric wisdom that refuses to exist wholly in Jaggers’ selfish world. Thus, with Wemmick and his family safely in their home—truly cleansed of the filth of the London legal system—Dickens gives us a type of Heavenly City, where love is selfless. Hope is evident there in Wemmick’s devotion to his father and his prudent love for Miss Skiffins. So manifest is the wholesome atmosphere at Walworth that, here, Pip confides to Wemmick his first selfless wish, to secretly extricate Herbert from his financial woes. Indeed, Walworth is far from London, and Jaggers, who washes away his guilt only superficially since he remains immersed in the city’s sludge, is excluded. That Pip exclusively is invited to journey with Wemmick from London to Walworth is telling of Pip’s overall journey—a journey of fall, conversion, and repentance. While Wemmick maintains both his London life of portable property (see p. 247) and his sacred space at Walworth, Pip—as our confessing pilgrim convert—will renounce all of his tangible ties to the earthly city to complete his journey.

In fact, the habits—ambition, lavish spending, all-too-creative finances—that place Pip in the arena to compete with other Victorian gentlemen are just the habits he must surrender.²⁰ He is, no doubt, well on his way when, after seeing Herbert’s prospects improve, an increasingly selfless and humble Pip tells us, I had the greatest difficulty in restraining my tears of triumph when I saw him so happy (see p. 362). Such an inner awakening and outer transformation pave the way for many changes. When Pip initially misreads Magwitch, believing still that there is Convict in the very grain of the man (see p. 404), he has yet to reach a true understanding of Herbert’s prophetic claim that no varnish can hide the grain of the wood (see p. 223) or Jaggers’ insistence that he must [t]ake nothing on its looks (see p. 403). Truly, it is Magwitch’s honesty and goodness that no wrongful accusation can hide, but this is clear only to one gifted with true insight. Deceived instead by Compeyson’s lies, the courts imprison Magwitch, while Pip vows to never stir from [his] side (see p. 532). Soon Pip’s eyes and heart are opened, and simultaneously, his acceptance of and appreciation for his benefactor grow. Our retrospective narrator confesses, I only saw a man who had meant to be my benefactor, and who had felt affectionately, gratefully, and generously, towards me with great constancy. . . . I only saw in him a much better man than I had been to Joe (see p. 531). When, on his deathbed, Magwitch’s eyes light up as Pip enters, and he says, God bless you! You’ve never deserted me, dear boy, Pip, now remorseful, admits to us, I could not forget that I had once meant to (see p. 546).

Yet even with his vision thus clarified, Pip knows that he must pay for his past choices. Joe, though ever forgiving, considers permanent the gap between his social standing and Pip’s. As such, once Joe has selflessly nursed Pip back to health after Magwitch’s death, Joe resumes his more distant position. After all, our now-repentant narrator acknowledges, Had I given Joe no reason to doubt my constancy, and to think that in prosperity I should grow cold to him and cast him off? (see p. 558). Along with this awakening to his own arrogance, Pip learns that Biddy has not pined away for him but, instead, that she and Joe—two kindred souls—are planning to marry.

From this view of Dickens’ novel, in which the hero’s thoughts and memories are our most vital link to his motivations and transformations, the question of the novel’s two endings is rather easily answered. Yet the answer and the question, really, come only with some research beyond the originally published text. Great Expectations, like Dickens’ other novels, first appeared serially. It was published in weekly numbers in his periodical, All the Year Round, from December 1860 to August 1861, with the first book edition appearing also in 1861. From the novel’s first unveiling and until well after Dickens’ death, only the second ending, known also as the happy ending, was published.²¹ As is the case in most modern editions of Great Expectations, appended to this volume is Dickens’ own original ending. While the originally published ending, that which ends our narrative and which was recommended to Dickens by Edward Bulwer-Lytton,²² is favored by many modern critics, Dickens’ first intention was hailed as more appropriate by the majority of his contemporaries and near contemporaries. Indeed, the popular, published conclusion offers a Victorian happy ending, but it offers also a too-suddenly emotive and healed Estella and fails to convey the novel’s overarching message: Pip’s acknowledgment of his improprieties and his newfound charity toward others are vital, but there is more to his acceptance of his moral vocation. Undoubtedly, he is called to seek no further earthly gain for himself; instead, he is to truly love Estella best and to find joy, however paradoxical, in the knowledge that her suffering had been stronger than Miss Havisham’s teaching, and had given her a heart to understand what [his] used to be (see p. 579). They are each on a journey of healing. While Pip has benefited from the moral guidance of Joe, Biddy, Herbert, Wemmick, and Magwitch, Estella has traveled longer on the wayward route. Still, Pip’s comfort comes in this last meeting, for in her face and in her voice, and in her touch (see p. 579), thus transformed, he finds assurance; he finds gladness; he finds Dickensian hope.²³

DICKENS’ CHRONOLOGY

1812      On February 7 in Portsmouth, Charles John Huffman Dickens is born, the firstborn of eight and the eldest son of John and Elizabeth Dickens. By May, the War of 1812 begins, causing John Dickens, a clerk of the Navy Pay Office, to move his family frequently.

1814      Charles and his family are moved to London.

1815      The Corn Laws are established, leaving farm workers impoverished.

1817      John Dickens is summoned to work in Chatham, at a government dockyard; the family is again relocated.

1821      John Dickens’ financial improvidence forces the family from their pleasant Chatham home on Ordnance Terrace to a small tenement. Charles begins instruction at a school run by a Baptist minister. On walks with his father, Dickens is introduced to Gad’s Hill Place, the home of his dreams, in which he would live for the last twelve years of his life and in which he would die.

1824      Having been forced back to London in 1822, the family moves to Camden Town. Further pecuniary issues cause John and Elizabeth to pawn many family belongings. John Dickens, along with his family, is sent to the Marshalsea debtor’s prison. Twelve-year-old Charles is sent to work in Warren’s Blacking Factory. Just over three months later, John’s mother dies. He pays his debts with his inheritance and is released from Marshalsea and returns to Camden Town.

1825      Dickens attends school at Wellington House Academy.

1827      The Dickens family is evicted. Charles leaves school to become a solicitor’s clerk.

1829      He meets his first love, Maria Beadnell, and has a tumultuous relationship with her from 1830 until 1833.

1831—1834    Dickens works as a reporter for Parliament.

1832      A kidney-related sickness that plagued him since boyhood causes a missed audition and prevents his pursuit of a professional acting career.

1833      His first published story, A Dinner at Poplar Walk, appears in the Monthly Magazine. He assumes the pseudonym Boz. He has additional publications in this periodical from 1834 to 1835.

1834      Dickens joins the reporting staff of the Morning Chronicle, continuing to publish in the Monthly Magazine, as well.

1835      The owners of the Morning Chronicle begin publishing the Evening Chronicle. George Hogarth, the editor, befriends Dickens. At the Hogarth home, Dickens meets Catherine, Hogarth’s daughter; the two fall in love and become engaged in the spring.

1836      Dickens publishes his first book, Sketches by Boz, a collection of previously published stories. He marries Catherine and meets lifelong friend and biographer John Forster. Pickwick Papers begins appearing monthly in serial form, published by Chapman and Hall.

1837      Dickens leaves the Morning Chronicle and becomes editor of Bentley’s Miscellany. Oliver Twist is serialized in Bentley’s. Pickwick Papers is released in one volume. The first of ten children is born. Catherine’s sister, Mary Hogarth, who was only seventeen and living with Charles and Catherine, dies in their home. He is distraught at her loss.

1838      Dickens’ observations during a visit to Yorkshire schools becomes social critique in Nicholas Nickleby, which is serialized that same year. Oliver Twist is published in three volumes.

1839      He resigns as editor of Bentley’s and begins to publish Master Humphrey’s Clock, a weekly periodical. Nicholas Nickleby is published in one volume.

1840      Master Humphrey’s Clock serializes The Old Curiosity Shop. Sketches of Young Couples is published.

1841      Barnaby Rudge is serialized, also in Master Humphrey’s Clock. Both The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge are published in separate volumes. Dickens refuses an offer to run for Parliament.

1842      Leaving Catherine and the children at home, he makes his first trip to North America, where he observes many social institutions for the purpose of comparing them to equivalent institutions in England. He speaks in many locations, with copyright infringement a frequent topic. Details of the journey, his many disappointments included, comprise the two volumes of American Notes published in October. Catherine’s sister, Georgiana, moves into the household permanently.

1843      Dickens begins his speaking career in London, beginning with a speech on issues of the press, promoting solid education and naming the publishing houses as sources of knowledge and protectors of freedom. Martin Chuzzlewit is serialized; by year’s end, A Christmas Carol is published.

1844      Martin Chuzzlewit is published in one volume. The Chimes, the second of Dickens’ Christmas books, is published in December. Reactions to Martin Chuzzlewit are disappointing, both professionally and financially. Dickens leaves Chapman and Hall after disputes over money and copyright ownership.

1845      The Dickens family returns from a year’s stay in Italy. His third Christmas book, The Cricket on the Hearth, is published. He embarks on an autobiographical piece from 1845 to 1848. The work is never completed, and the autobiographical fragment does not appear until after Dickens’ death, when published in Forster’s biography.

1846      Dickens briefly acts as editor of the Daily News. Pictures from Italy is published in May. He and his family spend much of the year in Paris and Switzerland, where he begins work on Dombey and Son, serialized from 1846 to 1848. The Battle of Life is published, the fourth of his Christmas books. Dickens writes The Life of Our Lord, his rendering of the Gospels.¹ Intended solely for the moral guidance of his children, the book was not published in Dickens’s lifetime. The family gospel remained private until 1934, when, after the death of Dickens’s eldest son, the family published the work, first in serial form, as The Life of Our Lord.

1847      He engages in philanthropic work with Angela Burdett-Coutts to found Urania Cottage, a home for fallen women. An Appeal to Fallen Women is written to further the cause.

1848      Dombey and Son is released in one volume. Dickens’ final Christmas book, The Haunted Man, is published. Interest in the theater leads him to organize charity performances of The Merry Wives of Windsor and Every Man in His Humour.

1849      David Copperfield is serialized.

1850      David Copperfield is published in one volume. Dickens founds Household Words, a weekly journal that he edits from 1850 to 1859.

1851      John Dickens, as well as Charles’ infant daughter Dora, dies. A Child’s History of England begins to appear in Household Words, though not weekly.

1852      Bleak House is published in monthly installments from March 1852 to September 1853.

1853      Bleak House is published in one volume. Dickens first offers public readings of A Christmas Carol for charity.

1854      He observes the industrial turmoil of a mill strike while visiting Preston, Lancashire. His observations are conveyed in Hard Times, which appears weekly in Household Words and is also published in book form.

1855      He has a disappointing and brief reunion with Maria Beadnell, who had become fat and unattractive in his eyes. Dickens rejects her interest in a renewed romantic relationship, as well as in any ongoing friendship. Little Dorrit is serialized from 1855 to 1857. He speaks publicly in support of the Administrative Reform Association, which sought to reconcile the tensions of class divisions intensified by failed government programs. In Little Dorrit, in his representation of the Barnacle family, he satirizes the mismanagement and accompanying nepotism plaguing civil bureaucracies.

1856      Dickens purchases Gad’s Hill Place, his childhood dream home near Rochester.

1857      He meets and falls in love with actress Ellen Ternan. He directs and plays a role in Wilkie Collins’ The Frozen Deep. In Household Words, he publishes The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices, a work coauthored with Collins. Little Dorrit appears in one volume.

1858      Dickens separates from Catherine, who moves from the family home. His sister-in-law Georgina remains in the home to care for the children. Seeking to dispel rumors about his marital problems and extramarital affairs, he publishes statements in Household Words. He publishes a collection of articles from Household Words, entitled Reprinted Pieces. After years with Bradbury and Evans, Dickens returns to Chapman and Hall as his main publisher. His friendship with novelist William Makepeace Thackeray is severed over exaggerated reactions to misunderstood material in a gossip column.

1859      Dickens founds All the Year Round, a new weekly journal in which he serializes A Tale of Two Cities. A Tale of Two Cities is published in one volume later in the year.

1860      Great Expectations appears weekly in All the Year Round from 1860 to 1861. Dickens, his children, and Georgina move permanently to Gad’s Hill Place.

1861      Great Expectations is published in three volumes.

1863      Dickens’ mother dies. Dickens’ daughter Kate reconciles her father and Thackeray just days before Thackeray’s death.

1864      Our Mutual Friend is serialized monthly, 1864—1865.

1865      Our Mutual Friend is published in two volumes. Dickens is involved in the Staplehurst train wreck when traveling with Ellen Ternan. He experiences lasting traumatic effects.

      1867 Dickens makes his second trip to America, this time for a reading tour. His public readings earn him much money. He suffers increasingly poor health while abroad.

1870      Dickens gives public readings in London. He issues six monthly parts of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, to have been twelve in all. He dies of a stroke at his home on June 9. Dickens is buried in Poet’s Corner, Westminster Abbey.

1879      Catherine dies after giving daughter Kate her collection of letters from her late husband, asking that she give them to the British Museum. Catherine is buried in London, in Highgate Cemetery, with Dora, the infant daughter who died at eight months in 1851.

A Note on the Text

Between December 1860 and August 1861, Great Expectations first appeared in twelve installments in Dickens’ weekly magazine, All Year Round. In July 1861, Chapman and Hall published the novel as a book in three volumes. The 1862 edition, published in one volume, included numerous minor changes, as well as a change to the end of the novel’s last sentence from I saw the shadow of no parting from her (1861) to I saw no shadow of another parting from her (1862). The text published here is that of the 1861 edition, as distinct from the one-volume edition of 1862, as well as from the subsequent editions of 1863, 1864, 1865, and 1868.

The Text of

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

by

CHARLES DICKENS

IN THREE VOLUMES

VOL. I.

AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED

TO

CHAUNCY HARE TOWNSHEND¹

VOLUME I

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),¹ 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,² 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,³ 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,⁴ 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 I found out for certain, that this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard; and that Philip Pirrip, late of this parish,⁵ 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 iron⁶ 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.

O! 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!⁷

Pip. Pip, sir!

Show us where you live, said the man. "Pint⁸ out the place!"

I pointed to where our village lay, on the flat in-shore among the alder-trees and pollards,⁹ a mile or more from the church.

The man, after looking at me for a moment, turned me upside-down and emptied my pockets. There was nothing in them but a piece of bread. When the church came to itself¹⁰—for he was so sudden and strong that he made it go head over heels before me, and I saw the steeple under my feet—when the church came to itself, I say, I was seated on a high tombstone, trembling, while he ate the bread ravenously.

You young dog, said the man, licking his lips, what fat cheeks you ha’ got.

I believe they were fat, though I was at that time undersized for my years, and not strong.

Darn Me if I couldn’t eat ’em, said the man, with a threatening shake of his head, and if I han’t half a mind to’t!

I earnestly expressed my hope that he wouldn’t, and held tighter to the tombstone on which he had put me; partly, to keep myself upon it; partly, to keep myself from crying.

Now then, lookee here! said the man. Where’s your mother?

There, sir! said I.

He started, made a short run, and stopped and looked over his shoulder.

There, sir! I timidly explained. Also Georgiana. That’s my mother.

Oh! said he, coming back. "And is that your father alonger¹¹ your mother?"

Yes, sir, said I, him too; late of this parish.

Ha! he muttered then, considering. Who d’ye live with—supposin’ you’re kindly let to live, which I han’t made up my mind about?

My sister, sir—Mrs. Joe Gargery—wife of Joe Gargery, the blacksmith, sir.

Blacksmith, eh? said he. And looked down at his leg.

After darkly looking at his leg and at me several times, he came closer to my tombstone, took me by both arms, and tilted me back as far as he could hold me; so that his eyes looked most powerfully down into mine, and mine looked most helplessly up into his.

Now lookee here, he said, the question being whether you’re to be let to live. You know what a file is.

Yes, sir.

"And you know what wittles¹² is."

Yes, sir.

After each question he tilted me over a little more, so as to give me a greater sense of helplessness and danger.

You get me a file. He tilted me again. And you get me wittles. He tilted me again. You bring ’em both to me. He tilted me again. Or I’ll have your heart and liver out. He tilted me again.

I was dreadfully frightened, and so giddy that I clung to him with both hands, and said, "If you would kindly please to let me keep upright, sir, perhaps I shouldn’t be sick, and perhaps I could attend¹³ more."

He gave me a most tremendous dip and roll, so that the church jumped over its own weather-cock.¹⁴ Then, he held me by the arms, in an upright position on the top of the stone, and went on in these fearful terms:

"You bring me, to-morrow morning early, that file and them wittles. You bring the lot to me, at that old Battery¹⁵ over yonder. You do it, and you never dare to say a word or dare to make a sign concerning your having seen such a person as me, or any person sumever,¹⁶ and you shall be let to live. You fail, or you go from my words in any partickler, no matter how small it is, and your heart and your liver shall be tore out, roasted and ate. Now, I ain’t alone, as you may think I am. There’s a young man hid with me, in comparison with which young man I am a Angel. That young man hears the words I speak. That young man has a secret way pecooliar to himself, of getting at a boy, and at his heart, and at his liver. It is in wain for a boy to attempt to hide himself from that young man. A boy may lock his door, may be warm in bed, may tuck himself up, may draw the clothes over his head, may think himself comfortable and safe, but that young man will softly creep and creep his way to him and tear him open. I am a keeping that young man from harming of you at the present moment, with great difficulty. I find it wery hard to hold that young man off of your inside. Now, what do you say?"

I said that I would get him the file, and I would get him what broken bits of food I could, and I would come to him at the Battery early in the morning.

Say Lord strike you dead if you don’t! said the man.

I said so, and he took me down.

Now, he pursued, you remember what you’ve undertook, and you remember that young man, and you get home!

Goo-good night, sir, I faltered.

Much of that!¹⁷ said he, glancing about him over the cold wet flat. I wish I was a frog. Or a eel!

At the same time, he hugged his shuddering body in both his arms—clasping himself, as if to hold himself together—and limped towards the low church wall. As I saw him go, picking his way among the nettles, and among the brambles that bound the green mounds,¹⁸ he looked in my young eyes as if he were eluding the hands of the dead people, stretching up cautiously out of their graves, to get a twist upon his ankle and pull him in.

When he came to the low church wall, he got over it, like a man whose legs were numbed and stiff, and then turned round to look for me. When I saw him turning, I set my face towards home, and made the best use of my legs. But presently I looked over my shoulder, and saw him going on again towards the river, still hugging himself in both arms, and picking his way with his sore feet among the great stones dropped into the marshes here and there, for stepping-places when the rains were heavy, or the tide was in.

The marshes were just a long black horizontal line then, as I stopped to look after him; and the river was just another horizontal line, not nearly so broad nor yet so black; and the sky was just a row of long angry red lines and dense black lines intermixed. On the edge of the river I could faintly make out the only two black things in all the prospect that seemed to be standing upright; one of these was the beacon by which the sailors steered—like an unhooped cask upon a pole¹⁹—an ugly thing when you were near it; the other, a gibbet²⁰ with some chains hanging to it which had once held a pirate. The man was limping on towards this latter, as if he were the pirate come to life, and come down, and going back to hook himself up again. It gave me a terrible turn when I thought so; and as I saw the cattle lifting their heads to gaze after him, I wondered whether they thought so too. I looked all round for the horrible young man, and could see no signs of him. But, now I was frightened again, and ran home without stopping.

CHAPTER II

My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I, and had established a great reputation with herself and the neighbours because she had brought me up by hand.¹ Having at that time to find out for myself what the expression meant, and knowing her to have a hard and heavy hand, and to be much in the habit of laying it upon her husband as well as upon me, I supposed that Joe Gargery and I were both brought up by hand.

She was not a good-looking woman, my sister; and I had a general impression that she must have made Joe Gargery marry her by hand. Joe was a fair man, with curls of flaxen hair on each side of his smooth face, and with eyes of such a very undecided blue that they seemed to have somehow got mixed with their own whites. He was a mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish, dear fellow—a sort of Hercules² in strength, and also in weakness.

My sister, Mrs. Joe, with black hair and eyes, had such a prevailing redness of skin that I sometimes used to wonder whether it was possible she washed herself with a nutmeg-grater instead of soap. She was tall and bony, and almost always wore a coarse apron, fastened over her figure behind with two loops, and having a square impregnable bib in front, that was stuck full of pins and needles. She made it a powerful merit in herself, and a strong reproach against Joe, that she wore this apron so much. Though I really see no reason why she should have worn it at all: or why, if she did wear it at all, she should not have taken it off, every day of her life.

Joe’s forge adjoined our house, which was a wooden house, as many of the dwellings in our country were—most of them, at that time. When I ran home from the churchyard, the forge was shut up, and Joe was sitting alone in the kitchen. Joe and I being fellow-sufferers, and having confidences as such, Joe imparted a confidence to me, the moment I raised the latch of the door and peeped in at him opposite to it, sitting in the chimney corner.

Mrs. Joe has been out a dozen times, looking for you, Pip. And she’s out now, making it a baker’s dozen.³

Is she?

Yes, Pip, said Joe; and what’s worse, she’s got Tickler with her.

At this dismal intelligence, I twisted the only button on my waistcoat round and round, and looked in great depression at the fire. Tickler was a wax-ended piece of cane,⁴ worn smooth by collision with my tickled frame.

She sot down, said Joe, and she got up, and she made a grab at Tickler, and she Ram-paged out. That’s what she did, said Joe, slowly clearing the fire between the lower bars with the poker, and looking at it: she Ram-paged out, Pip.

Has she been gone long, Joe? I always treated him as a larger species of child, and as no more than my equal.

Well, said Joe, glancing up at the Dutch clock,⁵ she’s been on the Ram-page, this last spell, about five minutes, Pip. She’s a coming! Get behind the door, old chap, and have the jack-towel⁶ betwixt you.

I took the advice. My sister, Mrs. Joe, throwing the door wide open, and finding an obstruction behind it, immediately divined the cause, and applied Tickler to its further investigation. She concluded by throwing me—I often served her as a connubial⁷ missile—at Joe, who, glad to get hold of me on any terms, passed me on into the chimney and quietly fenced me up there with his great leg.

Where have you been, you young monkey? said Mrs. Joe, stamping her foot. "Tell me directly what you’ve been doing to wear me away with fret and fright and worrit,⁸ or I’d have you out of that corner if you was fifty Pips, and he was five hundred Gargerys."

I have only been to the churchyard, said I, from my stool, crying and rubbing myself.

Churchyard! repeated my sister. If it warn’t for me you’d have been to the churchyard long ago, and stayed there. Who brought you up by hand?

You did, said I.

And why did I do it, I should like to know! exclaimed my sister.

I whimpered, I don’t know.

"I don’t! said my sister. I’d never do it again! I know that. I may truly say I’ve never had this apron of mine off, since born you were. It’s bad enough to be a blacksmith’s wife (and him a Gargery) without being your mother."

My thoughts strayed from that question as I looked disconsolately at the fire. For, the fugitive out on the marshes with the ironed leg, the mysterious young man, the file, the food, and the dreadful pledge I was under to commit a larceny on those sheltering premises, rose before me in the avenging coals.

Hah! said Mrs. Joe, restoring Tickler to his station. Churchyard, indeed! You may well say churchyard, you two. One of us, by-the-by, had not said it at all. "You’ll drive me to the churchyard betwixt you, one of these days, and oh, a pr-r-recious pair you’d be without me!"

As she applied herself to set the tea-things, Joe peeped down at me over his leg, as if he were mentally casting me and himself up, and calculating what kind of pair we practically should make, under the grievous circumstances foreshadowed. After that, he sat feeling his right-side flaxen curls and whisker, and following Mrs. Joe about with his blue eyes, as his manner always was at squally⁹ times.

My sister had a trenchant¹⁰ way of cutting our bread-and-butter for us, that never varied. First, with her left hand she jammed the loaf hard and fast against her bib—where it sometimes got a pin into it, and sometimes a needle, which we afterwards got into our mouths. Then she took some butter (not too much) on a knife and spread it on the loaf, in an apothecary kind of way as if she were making a plaister¹¹—using both sides of the knife with a slapping dexterity, and trimming and moulding the butter off round the crust. Then, she gave the knife a final smart wipe on the edge of the plaister, and then sawed a very thick round off the loaf: which she finally, before separating from the loaf, hewed into two halves, of which Joe got one, and I the other.

On the present occasion, though I was hungry, I dared not eat my slice. I felt that I must have something in reserve for my dreadful acquaintance, and his ally the still more dreadful young man. I knew Mrs. Joe’s housekeeping to be of the strictest kind, and that my larcenous researches might find nothing available in the safe.¹² Therefore I resolved to put my hunk of bread-and-butter down the leg of my trousers.

The effort of resolution necessary to the achievement of this purpose, I found to be quite awful. It was as if I had to make up my mind to leap from the top of a high house, or plunge into a great depth of water. And it was made the more difficult by the unconscious¹³ Joe. In our already-mentioned freemasonry¹⁴ as fellow-suffers, and in his good-natured companionship with me, it was our evening habit to compare the way we bit through our slices, by silently holding them up to each other’s admiration now and then—which stimulated us to new exertions. To-night, Joe several times invited me, by the display of his fast-diminishing slice, to enter upon our usual friendly competition; but he found me, each time, with my yellow mug of tea on one knee, and my untouched bread-and-butter on the other. At last, I desperately considered that the thing I contemplated must be done, and that it had best be done in the least improbable manner consistent with the circumstances. I took advantage of a moment when Joe had just looked at me, and got my bread-and-butter down my leg.

Joe was evidently made uncomfortable by what he supposed to be my loss of appetite, and took a thoughtful bite out of his slice, which he didn’t seem to enjoy. He turned it about in his mouth much longer than usual, pondering over it a good deal, and after all gulped it down like a pill. He was about to take another bite, and had just got his head on one side for a good purchase¹⁵ on it, when his eye fell on me, and he saw that my bread-and-butter was gone.

The wonder and consternation with which Joe stopped on the threshold of his bite and stared at me, were too evident to escape my sister’s observation.

What’s the matter now? said she, smartly, as she put down her cup.

I say, you know! muttered Joe, shaking his head at me in a very serious remonstrance. "Pip, old chap! You’ll do yourself a mischief. It’ll stick somewhere. You can’t have chawed¹⁶ it, Pip."

"What’s the matter now?" repeated my sister, more sharply than before.

"If you can cough any trifle on¹⁷ it up, Pip, I’d recommend you to do it, said Joe, all aghast.  ‘Manners is manners, but still your elth’s your elth.’ "¹⁸

By this time, my sister was quite desperate, so she pounced on Joe, and, taking him by the two whiskers, knocked his head for a little while against the wall behind him: while I sat in the corner, looking guiltily on.

Now, perhaps you’ll mention what’s the matter, said my sister, out of breath, you staring great stuck pig.¹⁹

Joe looked at her in a helpless way; then took a helpless bite, and looked at me again.

You know, Pip, said Joe, solemnly, with his last bite in his cheek, and speaking in a confidential voice, as if we two were quite alone, you and me is always friends, and I’d be the last to tell upon you, any time. But such a—he moved his chair and looked about the floor between us, and then again at me—"such a most oncommon Bolt²⁰ as that!"

Been bolting his food, has he? cried my sister.

You know, old chap, said Joe, looking at me, and not at Mrs. Joe with his bite still in his cheek, I Bolted, myself, when I was your age—frequent—and as a boy I’ve been among a many Bolters; but I never see your Bolting equal yet, Pip, and it’s a mercy you ain’t Bolted dead.

My sister made a dive at me, and fished me up by the hair: saying nothing more than the awful words, You come along and be dosed.

Some medical beast had revived Tar-water²¹ in those days as a fine medicine, and Mrs. Joe always kept a supply of it in the cupboard; having a belief in its virtues correspondent to its nastiness. At the best of times, so much of this elixir was administered to me as a choice restorative, that I was conscious of going about, smelling like a new fence. On this particular evening the urgency of my case demanded a pint of this mixture, which was poured down my throat, for my greater comfort, while Mrs. Joe held my head under her arm, as a boot would be held in a boot-jack.²² Joe got off with half a pint; but was made to swallow that (much to his disturbance, as he sat slowly munching and meditating before the fire), because he had had a turn.²³ Judging from myself, I should say he certainly had a turn afterwards, if he had had none before.

Conscience is a dreadful thing when it accuses man or boy; but when, in the case of a boy, that secret burden co-operates with another secret burden down the leg of his trousers, it is (as I can testify) a great punishment. The guilty knowledge that I was going to rob Mrs. Joe—I never thought I was going to rob Joe, for I never thought of any of the housekeeping property as his—united to the necessity of always keeping one

Reviews for Great Expectations

[steve02476 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I spent my whole adult life thinking I’d read this book in Jr High school - but this month it was my book club’s selection and I discovered that the first few chapters seemed very familiar; the rest was a total surprise, clearly I’d only started the book as a kid. Anyway, an amazing story and I’m glad I read it now.

[kslade-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A favorite book. I read it in 8th grade and most everyone else hated it, but I was enthralled! I could relate to Pip somehow.

[anniik_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

After being forced to read parts of The Tale of Two Cities in high school, I’d convinced myself that I couldn’t stand Dickens. After reading this book, I can definitely say that I was wrong. I very much enjoyed this book, its story, and the characters.

[ghost_boy-691444 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"I looked at the stars, and considered how awful it would be for a man to turn his face up to them as he froze to death, and see no help or pity in all the glittering multitude."

One of the many quotes I liked from this book, but this one really spoke to me for some reason. Probably because it's semi-haunting. Compared to other Dickens books that I'v read so far this one is the best written.

I'm very happy this was better than Oliver Twist. You can't really compared the two, but I really don't like Oliver Twist. This book made up for that one though. The character I liked far better. Pip I liked better because he's telling the story, but he also seemed more aware of what was going on. I also really liked Miss Havisham, she stole the show, she was on fire (okay bad joke).

If you're looking for a semi-Gothic and semi-crime novel, this is a good choice. I was in fact looking for something with a little crime and something that was Gothic, but not too Gothic.

[luminous4path · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

It was okay. I think its themes are meant more for a YA audience.

[chwiggy · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I did not finish reading this book. It just felt like an eternity every so often. And while I sometimes caught a sliver of enjoyable writing, the premise had never hooked me enough to now keep going. I think I've had enough at least for now.

[connorshirs · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I took a buzz-feed quiz on which classic novel I should read and got this. 1) The cover is beautiful. 2) I thought Miss Havisham was a ghost the entire story. I loved Estella the most as a character. She proves that every individual has the ability to love; despite their background. One of my favorites.

[kittycunningh-815148 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Better toward the end than at the beginning. Listening to it through tedium was better than trying to read it for myself.

[profh-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I remember my mother expressing surprise that Dickens wasn't read in any of my college English classes. I can't think of a single graduate student in or around my cohort who worked on him either, yet I knew he was one of my grandfather's favorites and that Dickens was very popular in his day. In sum, I think this is a fairytale style of prose that's gone out of fashion (and for good reason). Everyone in the novel is an exaggerated caricature. It makes for very predictable dialogue and a static, boring plotline. There's an interesting central idea: Does the source of wealth matter and does money change a person? The examination of this question is fairly surface level for a work of nearly five-hundred pages. I'm content to have had the experience of reading one of his more famous novels, but I would only recommend Dickens to someone interested in that particular time/place in the history of England and English Literature.

[composingcomposer · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It took longer to get invested in than some of Dickens's other works, but by the end I did care what happened to the various characters.

[paul_s-289480 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A sensible chuckle. I was surprised to see how little humour has changed and how old the "old jokes" really are. Poor Pip, forever blueballed.

[elenchus_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Recognisably Dickensian in all the ways I remembered, perhaps 30 years after my first Dickens novels. I was not bowled over the way I was in freshman seminar, but well-enough pleased and the specific title was decided by R's school assignment so I'm content with that, too. Great Expectations points up Dickens's clear-eyed insight into the hearts of neglected if not destroyed children. I broadly recall a similar outlook in other novels, and it may not even be particularly manifest here. That deep psychology into other people (people different than me, and yet recognisable) registered then and now as a key characteristic of the modern novel.No doubt influenced by my reading in noir, I found in the central plot a mystery without a sleuth; Dickens's own asides the same role as the shamus's distracting tough talk in Chandler, Hammett, Macdonald.The fact that every character is in the end found to be connected to all others (Six Degrees of Pip Pirrip), amused me and more or less was expected, but R found it almost infuriating. Great Expectations has a clearer message than I recall from Bleak House or Little Dorrit, as though Dickens imagined characters and situations as a means to assess the myriad ways Pip might delude himself: class or caste, public acceptance or accolade, wealth or comfort -- all manner of outer appearance, in other words, in contrast with inner meaning. The sheer variety of it all, and the cast of characters with their idiosyncracies, kept it interesting.Uncertain whether I will next re-read one of the three novels from that freshman seminar, or pick another novel. My initial impression 30 years ago stands, Dickens is worth reading.//Favourite characters: Wemmick, Herbert Pocket, Havisham, Jaggers -- and Satis House. (I wonder if Peake thought of it when writing Gormenghast.)

[steve_walker-348810 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Not my cup of tea.

[veritythefox · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the best novels ever written.

[felixfern · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Required reading for being a human. Also it's epic.

[tehya13 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Although lengthy, this book was hard to put down. Amazing characters all with unique personality and plot twists I didn't see coming. This book had a lot of humor in it surprisingly! And it had me laughing for 5 minutes straight. Pip living through hardship and experiencing family deaths at such a young age is bound to get someone down. But it never did get him down. He was a hard worker and always polite to his surroundings. Although he despised Mr. Pumblechook's claims of raising Pip up to the man he is today, he never snapped or said wrong things to him. His sister did more works in his life than he ever thought she did, she taught him well and he starts to realize it towards the end. (God rest Mrs. Joe Gargery's soul.) The ending is bittersweet yet happy. Turning over a new leaf at the end. I loved this book more than I thought I would and I'm happy I experienced it after years of it sitting on my shelf. (also my favorite character was Herbert, he's such a nice boy.)

[nx74defiant · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Bit slow in parts. Since it was originally published in installments it has peaks and valleys. It pay better to have the story be longer. The ending is fitting

[dinadansfriend · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Charles Dickens' classic of unrequited love, and failures of communication. Pip grows up without an understanding of where his situation in Victorian england comes from, and later suffers in his quest for understanding who he really is. A tearjerker by modrn standards, and certainly lacks the fairy tale ending that dickens must have tired of by 1861.

[steller0707 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Second time reading this - the first was in high school. First published as a serial in a magazine, I can see how it would have been very popular. It has a little bit of everything in it - adventure, crime, coming-of-age, love gothic and humor!

[stevenjohntait · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great book. "You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose..." Perfect. I think I've read it four times, but I'm sure I'll read it again.

[gilroy_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This could be listed with the subtitle of "The Misadventures of Pip." It's interesting, though not something that caught me to focus on it.If I'm understanding this correctly, Joe was abused by an alcoholic father and as such married an abusive woman to take the place of the abusive father. This is not openly displayed in the text, per se, but it is discussed by the narrator on a few occasions. This felt like a book written and published in stages, so the various parts feel a little stilted when pushed together. Though to bring the file up again did connect them some. Also the whole deal with the dying of Ms. Havernsham is kinda creepy.Something I did have to keep correcting myself in my mind was that the use of certain words has changed mightily since this was written. When someone asks is he an intimate, this isn't referring to a date, but to a close friend, for instance.I noted that unless he's given them no first name, Dickens has a habit of referring to characters by their title and first name. Mr. and Mrs. Joe. Mr. and Ms. Cecelia. It's a touch unnerving.I've gotten just about past the half way point. My loan expires tomorrow. I'm not looking to renew. The story isn't real compelling to me, and the "Great Expectations" are two fold: what Pip expects of himself and what others expect of Pip. This is definitely a long winded fictional biography. I'm not into biographies most times. Might be why this isn't my type of book.

[threadnsong · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm quite impressed with this book, read for a F2F book group. By this point in Dickens' writing career, he is less intrigued with cartoonish, humorous caricatures of people and more involved in the depth of their personalities. Joe, the simple but loving blacksmith who is unhappily married to Pip's sister, Estelle, and Miss Havisham have all finally received reasons and intrigue and a backstory to explain themselves.The basic story is a tale of an orphaned boy who lives with his b*tch of a sister and her husband near the marshes of Kent. He stumbles upon an escaped fugitive one night who terrifies him and colors his childhood for many years. Time passes, schooling might start (or not), and Pip meets the odd Miss Havisham who lives on abandoned home and brewery with her ward, Estelle. Pip spends almost as much time there as at school, and events at home include his sister and her alliance with narrow-minded townsfolk.As Pip grows older, his heart remains compassionate towards Joe, towards Estelle, and towards the strange Herbert, despite Pip's abuse at his sister's hands. She is beaten during a robbery and left without an ability to speak, while Pip is sent off to London to claim his inheritance. What gives this book its depth is that Pip has "great expectations" about where his new-found fortune originates, how much more richly he can live, and yet nothing becomes as it seems. Herbert and he become fast friends; Herbert knows the backstory for Miss Havisham; Pip's personal lawyer, Mr. Wemmick is a different person at home and at the office; and finally Pip's personal benefactor becomes a central character.Definitely one of Dickens' best writings, and worth the time put into it.

[isatyajeet · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Speechless...!

[comfypants · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A poor boy is promised to inherit a fortune.4/4 (Great).Pip is usually unsympathetic, but there are enough lovable secondary characters, and enough twists and suspense, to keep the book enjoyable, and to make a lasting impression.

[booksfordinner · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What on earth can you say? Pip!

[nittnut · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is classic Dickens. I know he uses a lot of words, but he tells tales of the human condition with such humor and compassion. My favorite characters were Joe Gargery and Wemmick. Wemmick was particularly endearing with his "aged P" and his life away from work. So glad I persevered and finished it.

[justagirlwithabook · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is another one of my favorites of Dickens'! I have no clue when I read this one but the whole story of Pip really touched me. There were moments I thought he was a fool, but the vast majority of the time I really empathized with him. It's another classic example of Dickens' atmospheric style and wit coming together for an altogether great novel.

[deckla_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Who can resist Pip and Miss Haversham and Joe and Estella and the motley crew of characters that make up this extraordinary novel.

[csdaley-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As I slowly work my way through Charles Dickens for the second time in my life (I was 13 when I worked my way through the first time) I am impressed at how well I still like the books. This one isn't my favorite. It is slow at times. This was the only flaw for me. Dickens captures me. There is something about his writing that transports me to a gray and sooty London. I am not sure which one I read next but this book has done nothing to slow down my desire to reread them all.

[m.belljackson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Dickens' descriptions of locations, people and their characters (or lack of it) create a mellow reading experience.They make the plot, at times revolving around Bonkers Chicken predictable twists with a few delightful surprises, more memorable and enduring.His description of Pip's early encounters with the alphabet and numbers is a treasure:"...I struggled through the alphabet as if it had been a bramble-bush...""After that I fell among those thieves, the nine figures, who seemed every evening to do something new to disguise themselves and baffle recognition."Though not as compelling as A TALE OF TWO CITIES, Great Expectations offers fewerannoying personages than his other books and Joe, Wemmick, Herbert, and the Aged givereaders people to care about. Pip and his convict are more of a challenge.