num_pages: 340
description: In the marshy mists of a village churchyard, a tiny orphan boy named Pip is suddenly terrified by a shivering, limping convict on the run. Years later, a supremely arrogant young Pip boards the coach to London where, by the grace of a mysterious benefactor, he will join the ranks of the idle rich and "become a gentleman." Finally, in the luminous mists of the village at evening, Pip the man meets Estella, his dazzingly beautiful tormentor, in a ruined garden--and lays to rest all the heartaches and illusions that his "great expectations" have brought upon him. Dickens's biographer, Edgar H. Johnson, has said that--except for the author's last-minute tampering with his original ending-- Great Expectations is "the most perfectly constructed and perfectly written of all Dickens's works." In John Irving's Introduction to this edition, the novelist takes the view that Dickens's revised ending is "far more that mirror of the quality of trust in the novel as a whole." Both versions of the ending are printed here.
language: English
title: Great Expectations
titlecomplete: Great Expectations
characters: Abel Magwitch, Philip "Pip" Pirrip, Joseph "Joe" Gargery, Herbert Pocket, John Wemmick, Dolge Orlick, Jaggers, Miss Havisham, Estella, Compeyson
genres: Literature, British Literature, Classics, School, Novels, Victorian, 19th Century, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Classic Literature
ratings_count: 778298
awards: awardedAt: 1262332800000
name: Audie Award
category: Classic, awardedAt: 725875200000
name: Премія імені Максима Рильського
publisher: Random House Audio