Mysterious people enter the life of the young orphan called Pip. Once in a misty graveyard, he is accosted by an escaping convict needing help. Pip brings a file and food and witnesses a desperate struggle with an unknown man. Pip is later entertained and bedeviled by the strange Miss Havisham and a beautiful young protege, Estella. Years later, Pip comes into a mysterious fortune. The now arrogant Pip boards a coach to London to join the ranks of the idle rich young gentlemen. He assumes that he is being groomed to marry Estella. The convict returns to reveal that it is he who is responsible for Pip’s fortune. Eventually, after learning much about human frailty and steadfastness, malevolence, and kindness, Pip becomes a wiser man. Many years later, he meets again the dazzling beauty Estella in the ruins of Ms. Havisham’s garden, where he comes to terms with the illusions and promises of his “great expectations.”

REVIEW:

"Mr. Dickens may be reasonably proud of Great Expectations,” the Saturday Review of London opined in 1861. “He has written a story that is new, original, powerful, and very entertaining… Great Expectations restores Mr. Dickens and his readers to the old level. It is in his best vein, and although unfortunately it is too slight, and bears many traces of hasty writing, it is quite worthy to stand beside Martin Chuzzlewit and David Copperfield. It has character in it that will become part of common talk, and live even in the mouths of those who do not read novels. Mr. Dickens has always had one great fault… This fault is that of exaggerating one particular set of facts, a comic side in a character, or a comic turn of expression, until all reality fades away, and the person who is the centre of the extravagance becomes a mere peg… on which the rags of comedy hang loosely … But if this new tale is marked with faults of its predecessors, it appears to us to surpass them in one point. There are passages and conceptions in it which indicate a more profound study of the general nature of human character than Mr. Dickens usually betrays.”

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

Text plus notes on the novel, etc.

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/english/English104W-15/greatexpectations[index].htm

Great Expectations - Souvenir Programme

The BBC web site dedicated to Charles Dickens Great Expectations and the 1999 BBC drama production based on it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dickens/ge/

Great Expectations - Dickens' Locations

Information about the settings on Great Expectations from BBC Education
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dickens/ge/bckgrnd/kent.htm

Charles Dickens: An Overview

Dickens and the Victorian era, its history, social values, themes etc. http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/dickens/dickensov.html