Great Expectations

Author: (British) Charles Dickens
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: Charles Dickens (1812—1870) was a literary giant of 19th-century Britain. Great Expectations is one of his major works. Orphan Pip was raised by his sister and employed by the aristocratic Miss Havisham, falling in love with her adopted daughter Estella and determined to become a "gentleman." A young man he had kindly helped as a child, a convict who later became wealthy abroad, arranged for Pip to receive an upper-class education in London and enter high society as a way of repaying his debt of gratitude. However, fate did not align with Pip's hopes: Estella married someone else, the convict was captured and his inheritance confiscated, and Pip's "great expectations" vanished in an instant. The entire novel is gripping and deeply moving, with the process of hope giving way to disillusionment resonating with generations of readers. Many Western critics regard it as one of Dickens' finest works.