Great Expectations
Edition: Reprint
Series: Penguin English Library
Publisher: Penguin Books; Penguin Classics
Published: 1984
Place of publication: Hammondsworth, Middlesex, England
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 510
ISBN-13: 9780140430035
Copyright date: 1965
Description: Great Expectations (first published in 1860/61) is one of the most mature and serious of Dickens's novels. As Angus Calder points out in his introduction, it re- sembles a detective story — but in the sense in which Oedipus Rex also resembles one. From the first shock of the early pages, when Pip encounters the convict Magwitch, the mystery grips our attention and its psychological and moral truth holds us until the end. For, in discovering the secret of his •great expecta- tions'. Pip also begins to discover the truth about himself.

The cover shows a detail from 'A Country Blacksmith Disputing the Price of Iron' by J. M. W. Turner (photo: Rodney Todd-White)

The portrait of Charles Dickens inside the front cover is taken from an engraving after a painting by W. P. Frith, by permission of the Trustees of the Dickens House