Great Expectations facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Great Expectations

Title page of Vol. 1 of first edition, July 1861
Author	Charles Dickens
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	Weekly: 1 December 1860 – 3 August 1861
Genre	Realistic fiction
Publisher	Chapman & Hall
Publication date	1861 (in three volumes)
Media type	Print

Great Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens. It depicts the growth and personal development of an orphan named Philip Pirrip ("Pip"). The novel was first published in serial form in Dickens' weekly periodical All the Year Round, from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. In October 1861, Chapman and Hall published the novel in three volumes.

It is set among the marshes of Kent and in London in the early to mid 19th century. From the outset, the reader is "treated" by the terrifying encounter between Pip, the protagonist, and the escaped convict, Abel Magwitch. Great Expectations is a graphic book, full of extreme imagery, poverty, prison ships, "the hulks," barriers and chains, and fights to the death. It therefore combines intrigue and unexpected twists of autobiographical detail in different tones. Regardless of its narrative technique, the novel reflects the events of the time, Dickens' concerns, and the relationship between society and man.

Dickens felt Great Expectations was his best work, calling it "a very fine idea," and was very sensitive to compliments from his friends: "Bulwer, who has been, as I think you know, extraordinarily taken by the book." The cast includes the capricious Miss Havisham, the cold and beautiful Estella, the kind and generous blacksmith Joe, the dry and sycophantic Uncle Pumblechook, and the eloquent and wise Herbert Pocket. Throughout the narrative, typical Dickensian themes emerge: wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and the eventual triumph of good over evil.

Great Expectations has been translated into many languages and adapted many times to movies and other media.

Images for kids

• 

  Pip is ashamed of Joe at Satis House, by Francis Arthur Fraser

• 

  Miss Havisham with Estella and Pip. Art by H. M. Brock

• 

  Magwitch makes himself known to Pip

• 

  Mr Wemmick and "The Aged P.", illustration by Sol Eytinge Jr.

• 

  Charles Dickens, c. 1860

• 

  Advertisement for Great Expectations in All the Year Round

• 

  Charles Dickens Jr. (in 1874), possibly the model for Herbert Pocket

• 

  Satis House as depicted in Great Expectations

• 

  Restoration House from The Vines

• 

  Pip and Biddy followed by Orlick (chapter 17), by John McLenan

• 

  Pip before Magwitch's return, by John McLenan

• 

  Mr Wopsle as Hamlet, by Harry Furniss

• 

  George III guinea, a gold coin worth 21 shillings

• 

  Mr Pumblechook: "And may I—May I—?", by John McLenan

• 

  Chapter 20, outside Bartholomew Close, Jaggers threatening a woman with a shawl called Amelia, by F. A. Fraser

• 

  Joe commenting on Pip's good fortune, by John McLenan

• 

  Herbert Pocket and Pip in London, by John McLenan

• 

  "Do you take tea, or coffee, Mr Gargery?" by FA Fraser, c. 1877

• 

  Joe learns to read by John McLenan

• 

  Trabb's boy mocks Pip in the village highstreet outside the post-office by John McLenan

• 

  Mrs Pocket and her children indulging in idleness by Harry Furniss (1910)

• 

  Magwitch's arrest after his capture on the Thames while trying escape to France, by John McLenan

See also

In Spanish: Grandes esperanzas para niños