Great Expectations

Great Expectations is Charles Dickens's 13th novel and his penultimate completed novel. It depicts the personal growth and personal development of an orphan nicknamed Pip. It is Dickens's second novel, after David Copperfield, to be fully narrated in the first person. It is set among marshes in Kent, and in London, in the early to mid-1800s and contains some of Dickens' most memorable scenes, including the opening, in a graveyard, where the young Pip is accosted by the escaped convict, Abel Magwitch. Great Expectations is full of extreme imagery – poverty, prison ships and chains, and fights to the death– and has a colourful cast of characters who have entered popular culture. These include the eccentric Miss Havisham, the beautiful but cold Estella, and Joe, the kind and generous blacksmith. Dickens's themes include wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and the eventual triumph of good over evil Great Expectations is one of the most popular novels ever written in English, and has been translated into many languages, and adapted numerous times into various media.