Great Expectations

This Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Classic™ includes a glossary and reader’s notes to help the modern reader contend with Dickens’ complex approach to the human condition. The first installment of Great Expectations, Charles Dickens’ “lucky thirteenth novel,” appeared in December 1860 and has been delighting readers ever since. An anonymous benefactor plucks young Pip from his life of toil as a blacksmith’s apprentice and thrusts him into London society as a “gentleman of great expectations.” When a mysterious figure from his forgotten past re-emerges, however, every assumption on which Pip based his hopes is exposed as a delusion. How can Pip make amends to the loved ones he left behind, and how can he hope to ever win the affection of the woman he loves, but who is now forever beyond his reach? Great Expectations contains some of Dickens’ most memorable characters―the affable blacksmith Joe Gargery, the beautiful yet haughty Estella, the enigmatic Miss Havihsam, and the menacing convict, Magwitch―and puts a uniquely Dickensian spin on the age-old Cinderella story.