Great Expectations (Oxford World's Classics) [Paperback]

An absorbing mystery as well as a morality tale, the story of Pip, a poor village lad, and his expectations of wealth is Dickens at his most deliciously readable. The cast of characters includes kindly Joe Gargery, the loyal convict Abel Magwitch and the haunting Miss Havisham. If you have heartstrings, count on them being tugged. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Anton Lesser reads with magnificent virtuosity. --Christina Hardyment, The Times --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

"Psychologically the latter part of Great Expectations is about the best thing Dickens ever did." --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

The Clarendon Dickens' edition of one of the most famous of Dickens' novels --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

'you are to understand, Mr. Pip, that the name of the person who is your liberal benefactor remains a profound secret...' Young Pip lives with his sister and her husband the blacksmith, with few prospects for advancement until a mysterious benefaction takes him from the Kent marshes to London. Pip is haunted by figures from his past - the escaped convict Magwitch, the time-withered Miss Havisham and her proud and beautiful ward, Estella - and in time uncovers not just the origins of his great expectations but the mystery of his own heart. A powerful and moving novel, Great Expectations is suffused with Dickens's memories of the past and its grip on the present, and it raises disturbing questions about the extent to which individuals affect each other's lives. This edition includes a lively introduction, Dickens's working notes, the novel's original ending, and an extract from an early theatrical adaptation. It reprints the definitive Clarendon text.

Cambridge Literature is a series of literary texts edited for study by students aged 14-18 in English-speaking classrooms. It will include novels, poetry, short stories, essays, travel-writing and other non-fiction. The series will be extensive and open-ended and will provide school students with a range of edited texts taken from a wide geographical spread. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Great Expectations opens unforgettably in a twilit and overgrown churchyard on the eerie Kent marshes.

There the orphan Pip is disturbed to meet an escaped convict, Magwitch, but gives him food, in an encounter that is to haunt both their lives. How Pip receives riches from a mysterious benefactor, snobbishly abandons his friends for London society and 'great expectations', and grows through misfortune and suffering to maturity is the theme of one of Dicken's best-loved novels.

In Great Expectations Dickens blends gripping drama with penetrating satire to give a compelling story rich in comedy and pathos: he has also created two of his finest, most haunting characters in Pip and Miss Havisham. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Kate Flint is University Lecturer in Victorian and Modern English Literature, and Fellow of Linacre College, Oxford. She is the author of several books, and the editor of Trollope's Can You Forgive Her and Woolf's Jacob's Room in World's Classics. Margaret Cardwell has edited The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Martin Chuzzlewit in World's Classics. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.