'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.

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Features

• Perhaps Dickens's best-loved work, Great Expectations features memorable characters such as the convict Magwitch, the mysterious Miss Havisham and her proud ward Estella. Widely adapted for film and television, the story attracts readers of all ages.
• This edition reprints the authoritative text of the Clarendon edition, correcting both original printer's errors and later textual corruptions, and retains facsimiles of the original title-pages for each of the three volumes of the 1861 edition.
• Robert Douglas-Fairhurst's new introduction ranges widely across critical issues raised by the novel: its biographical genesis, the effect of the past on the present, ideas of origin and progress and what makes a 'gentleman', memory, melodrama, and the book's critical reception.
• Four appendices: the original ending to the novel; the different chapter numbering in the serial version; Dickens's working notes; two pages from the theatrical adaptation of the novel made by, or with the approval of, Dickens.
• The fullest set of critical notes in any mass-market edition.

ABOUT THE SERIES

For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Introduction
Note on the Text
Select Bibliography
A Chronology of Charles Dickens
Great Expectations
Appendix A The Original Ending
Appendix B Dickens’s Working Notes
Appendix C All the Year Round Instalments and Chapter-numbering in Different Editions
Appendix D The 1861 Theatrical Adaptation
Explanatory Notes

Charles Dickens

Edited by Margaret Cardwell and Introduction and Notes by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst.

Margaret Cardwell was formerly Reader in English at Queen's College, Belfast.

Robert Douglas-Fairhurst is Fellow and Tutor in English, Magdalen College, Oxford University.