Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Great Expectations (with a Preface by G. K. Chesterton and an Introduction by Andrew Lang)
    Great Expectations (with a Preface by G. K. Chesterton and an Introduction by Andrew Lang)
    Great Expectations (with a Preface by G. K. Chesterton and an Introduction by Andrew Lang)
    Ebook678 pages10 hours

    Great Expectations (with a Preface by G. K. Chesterton and an Introduction by Andrew Lang)

    By Charles Dickens

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    “Great Expectations” is the classic novel by Charles Dickens that traces the life of an orphan named Pip. The novel begins on Christmas Eve 1812 where we find a seven year old Pip as he encounters an escaped convict in the cemetery where Pip’s family is buried. Pip lives with his abusive older sister, and her husband Joe Gargery, a blacksmith, whom Pip works for as an apprentice. A wealthy spinster, Miss Havisham, encourages a friendship between Pip and her adopted daughter Estella. When Pip receives a large sum of money from an anonymous benefactor, whom he assumes to be Miss Havisham, he leaves for London to become a gentleman. Soon after Estella arrives in London and Pip, who is in love with the girl, escorts her about the town. When it is discovered that Miss Havisham is not the anonymous benefactor, a series of events is set in motion with tragic consequences. At the center of the novel is a complicated set of themes that can be simplified by the idea that the affection of love and loyalty of friendship are more important than aspirations for wealth and to a higher social class. This edition includes a preface by G. K. Chesterton, an introduction by Andrew Lang, and a biographical afterword.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDigireads.com Publishing
    Release dateJun 1, 2015
    ISBN9781420951370
    Great Expectations (with a Preface by G. K. Chesterton and an Introduction by Andrew Lang)
    Author

    Charles Dickens

    Charles Dickens nació en Portsmouth en 1812, segundo de los ocho hijos de un funcionario de la Marina. A los doce años, encarcelado el padre por deudas, tuvo que ponerse a trabajar en una fábrica de betún. Su educación fue irregular: aprendió por su cuenta taquigrafía, trabajó en el bufete de un abogado y finalmente fue corresponsal parlamentario de The Morning Chronicle. Sus artículos, luego recogidos en Bosquejos de Boz (1836-1837), tuvieron un gran éxito y, con la aparición en esos mismos años de los Papeles póstumos del club Pickwick, Dickens se convirtió en un auténtico fenómeno editorial. Novelas como Oliver Twist (1837), Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839) o (1841) alcanzaron una enorme popularidad, así como algunas crónicas de viajes, como Estampas de Italia (1846; ALBA CLÁSICA núm. LVII). Con Dombey e hijo (1846-1848) inicia su época de madurez novelística, de la que son buenos ejemplos David Copperfield (1849-1850), su primera novela en primera persona, y su favorita, en la que elaboró algunos episodios autobiográficos, Casa desolada (1852-1853), La pequeña Dorrit (1855-1857), Historia de dos ciudades (1859; ALBA PRIMEROS CLÁSICOS núm. 5) y Grandes esperanzas (1860-1861; ALBA CLÁSICA MAIOR núm. I). Dickens murió en Londres en 1870.

    Read more from Charles Dickens

    Related to Great Expectations (with a Preface by G. K. Chesterton and an Introduction by Andrew Lang)

    Related ebooks

    Classics For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • UNLIMITED

      Family Sharing

      Mar 29, 2022

      Family Sharing
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Hankering After Ghosts

      Dec 1, 2022

      It’s been 10 years since the publication of my book A Natural History of Ghosts (see FT296:42-45). I probably should have written more in it about the writer Charles Dickens. The truth is I’ve always had a special place in my heart for Dickens. I rea

      8 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Dr Lee Jackson On Why Charles Dickens Remains Relevant Today

      Nov 23, 2023

      MEET THE EXPERT DR LEE JACKSON is a writer and historian with an interest in the social history and geography of Victorian London. He is the author of numerous books, including Dickensland: The Curious History of Dickens’s London (Yale, 2023), and is

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Preying On Our Minds

      May 20, 2024

      YOU LIKE IT DARKER by Stephen King (Hodder & Stoughton, $37.99) is out on May 21. As King admits in his afterword to this 12-story collection, he is often criticised for being too prolific. As someone who has waded through many of his novels, I’d ad

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Books

      Aug 14, 2023

      Books
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Allure Of Knowledge

      Aug 12, 2021

      TO SEND REVIEW COPIES, CONTACT THE BOOK REVIEWS EDITOR AT [email protected] Mark A Waddell Cambridge University Press 2021 Pb, 232pp, £19.99, ISBN 9781108441650 Reading Mark Waddell’s excellent book brought back to mind the time I gave a tou

      11 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Mark Haddon’s Latest Curious Incident Sails the High Seas

      Jul 18, 2019

      Sex and attraction feature prominently throughout, as do birth and death, terror and violence—the stuff of life that hasn’t changed one bit over the eons. The post Mark Haddon’s Latest Curious Incident Sails the High Seas appeared first on The Millio

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Best Of The Year That Was

      Dec 23, 2020

      Best Of The Year That Was
      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Libyans, Parisians and London Irish

      Nov 28, 2024

      IT’S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN WHEN THIS column helpfully sorts sheep from goats, wheat from chaff and men from boys in our reckoning of the best fiction published in 2024. As ever, we omit from this list the best new titles we have covered already in

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Spectre Of The Past

      Jan 25, 2024

      The Spectre Of The Past
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Transgression Has Become So Banal: Chris Kraus and Jarett Kobek in Conversation

      Aug 24, 2017

      We’re all living in a word that comes after Kathy Acker. The post Transgression Has Become So Banal: Chris Kraus and Jarett Kobek in Conversation appeared first on The Millions.

      11 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Timelessness Trumps Timely

      Nov 26, 2020

      THE LITERARY CRITIC John Carey in 2000 published Pure Pleasure: A Guide to the 20th Century’s Most Enjoyable Books. In it he warned of those who associate reading with “swank and false refinement” and argued for “pure reading-pleasure”. Crucially, fo

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      You Can’t Judge A Book By Its Cover

      Jan 25, 2024

      GOOD NOVELS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN heavily buffeted in the marketplace of ideas. “Many books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered,” said W.H. Auden, who had clearly never heard of Wuthering Heights. So it’s natural — essential — for

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      David Copperfield

      Jul 13, 2022

      David Copperfield
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      A Year in Reading: Kevin Barry

      Dec 18, 2020

      Rattling around the house in the County Sligo hills, swinging from bouts of paranoia to moments of strange, demented hilarity, a 900-page doorstopper was just what I needed to stay grounded. The post A Year in Reading: Kevin Barry appeared first on T

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Lucy Corin Picks Up Where Virginia Woolf Left Off

      Apr 14, 2022

      The episodes of The Swank Hotel are weird because the world is weird. And the world is even weirder when the person you love most on earth might be dead but you still have to go to work. The post Lucy Corin Picks Up Where Virginia Woolf Left Off appe

      10 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Andrew Caldecott

      Jul 17, 2019

      Andrew Caldecott
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Swansongs And Southern Discomfort

      Oct 27, 2022

      THE BORDERLAND BETWEEN popular fiction and literary fiction is now fertile territory. Once upon a time it was easy to tell them apart. Popular and genre fiction were in small format paper-backs, literary fiction larger: now all have been promoted to

      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Opinion Culture

      Sep 16, 2022

      Opinion Culture
      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Mid-century Modern

      Sep 3, 2021

      Mid-century Modern
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Charles Dickens

      Jun 11, 2020

      It has been 150 years since Charles Dickens died, 184 years since his first work was released to the public and 156 years since his last completed book came out. In all of this time, these novels have never been out of print. Dickens may have left us

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The World The Book Can Build

      Oct 13, 2021

      The World The Book Can Build
      12 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Take Me There

      May 2, 2024

      Take Me There
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Great Expectations (with a Preface by G. K. Chesterton and an Introduction by Andrew Lang)

    4/5

    7,240 ratings146 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      Enjoyable as an audiobook. Well written.
    • 5/5
      Great book. "You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose..." Perfect. I think I've read it four times, but I'm sure I'll read it again.
    • 2/5
      I hated this book. I know it's a classic and I've met people who love it, but I just can't.

      The point of view gives a very skewed view of women and out motivations and it annoyed me too much to enjoy the other bits. I know there's lot of merit and so on, but it was just hard to for me stomach, especially at the age that I was when I first read it. It brought on emerging feelings about my place in the world and scared the crap out of me. I didn't mean to make it all about the image of women, but sometimes stories that really have nothing to do with us that way scare the hell out of me. This was one of those.

      And yeah, I get it that some find this irrational.
    • 5/5
      My favorite Dickens novel.
    • 4/5
      I am giving this audiobook edition 4* but downgrading my rating for the book itself to 3 ½ stars. I found Pip's devotion to Estella romantic but unconvincing and Pip himself I don't care for very much. This is my third or fourth time reading this novel and I keep hoping that I will discover why so many people think it is Dickens greatest. I like David Copperfield so much that I guess I just wish to feel the same fondness for this... Oh well.
    • 5/5
      Magnificent, of course. Mr. Dickens is amazing.
    • 4/5
      The writing is stellar. The narration is first-rate. The story is, um, Dickensian, which I now understand to mean brilliant and peopled with billions of fascinating characters. However, I just don't like Pip, and that keeps me from giving this one five stars.
    • 4/5
      This was the first book by Dickens I have read and, based on this one, I'll definitely read another. At times the vernacular was a little clunky and hard to follow - but that is just because of the change in times and, more than likely, the British influence.

      As much as I enjoyed the book I think I'd rename it to "Great Coincidences" as it is chock full of them. In fact every relationship, except those between Pip and his Joe are pretty much purely coincidental and yet those ties interweave throughout the story and continue to build and pile upon one another throughout the tale. Pip, Miss Havisham, Estella, Jaggers, Magwitch, etc. They were all coincidentally connected. Yet, for all of that, I still enjoyed the story.

      Pip, as a kid was amiable enough and, as an adult, while he clearly had some failings, he grew on me and remained likable and decent to the core. Perhaps his failings made me like him all the more because he seemed to be altogether believable.

      I hope Dickens other works have survived as well as Great Expectations over the years because, if they have, I have a nice new collection of books in my to-read pile.
    • 3/5
      Great Expectations tells the story of Pip, an orphan brought up by his abusive sister, who rises from the depths of poverty to the status gentleman, through the machinations of an anonymous benefactor.

      Great Expectations, published in 1861, is classified as Bildungsroman, or Coming of Age. This genre focuses on the psychological and moral growth of a main character, in this case Pip. Dickens depicted Pip as whiny and selfish, ready to turn his back on the people who cared most for him, namely Joe Gargery.

      Charles Dickens is a master at social criticism and character development. Miss Havisham has to be one of the most recognized in English literature. She is obviously insane, while being coddled by those around her, malicious in her intentions, and delights in the selfish creature she created in Estella.

      I thought Great Expectations was a decent book, but the middle part (where Pip learns to be a gentleman) dragged on for longer than I liked. I expect this is due to the original serialization of the novel. Pip was too whiny for me to really care for. However, I did enjoy it overall.
    • 3/5
      Another read aloud we did this year as part of Home School. I'd read this book in high school but didn't appreciate it as much then. The story is intriguing and suspenseful. We had many great discussions, about Pip, Joe, the Convict, selflessness, sacrifice and true love. A good read.
    • 2/5
      I had little expectations going into this and it was just as I expected. Dickens's novels are just too wordy to keep my interest.
    • 4/5
      My favourite Dickens. Masterful descriptions and eccentric characters. The story of a coming of age, of overcoming adversities and finding out that many ambitions were misplaced.
    • 4/5
      This was one of those books you have to be ready to read. I was required to read it in high school and I hated it. In later life, I picked it up again and was quite surprised by how much I enjoyed it. The ending dragged on a little long, but it was a very good story. I found myself to be quite intrigued by Miss Havisham. A classic.
    • 4/5
      When I heard the movie "Great Expectations" was going to be shown at a Dubuque theater I determined to read the book, because I am a great believer that one should read a book before seeing the movie, rather than the other way around. So I did that,, finishing the book on March 18, 1948. I saw the movie on March 21, 1948, It is the movie which came out in 1946, starring John Mills,Valerie Hobson, Finlay Currie and Alec Guinness. I know I enjoyed the movie, and what I remember of the story is no doubt based on what I remember of the movie.
    • 5/5
      (Warning, this review has spoilers.)Books become classics for a variety of reasons, but I think this book is a classic because it tackles the major life issues: What do we want to make of our one life? How do the choices of our youth impact our one life, and what impacts, seen and unseen, do we have on the lives of others? Since life is valued uniquely by every individual, this book says something different to every careful reader. Some reviewers on this site even remark that the personal themes of this book change for them as they reread it at different times of their lives. So here are some of my reactions to the book, at least for this, first reading: (1) Pip's shame over Joe. Everybody has done things they regret but Pip's problem is larger -- there is a side of himself that he regrets but cannot bring himself to overcome. Partly because he's so ashamed of himself that he can't face it. What if he could only have talked to Herbert about it? He talks freely to Herbert about everything else -- Estella, Magwitch, his debts -- but not about his shame of home and Joe. He can't say it out loud. He *never* says it out loud. (Just as Miss Haversham won't turn her face to the sun . . . .) What if Pip could have said out loud, "I am ashamed of Joe, and ashamed of myself for feeling that way"? Would he then have been able to deal with it? (What if Biddy had had the nerve to say it to him?) (Tough question for any of us: What am I so ashamed of that I can't say it out loud?) (2) Pip's treatment of Joe. I see this as a two-way street (even though the narrator Pip blames only himself). In their first London meeting, Joe is so uncomfortable that he rushes back home without even staying for dinner. And the invitation he gives Pip is so open-ended, it's easy for Pip to talk himself out of it. Of course Pip wanted to avoid the people of his home town, they were horrible to him, before and after; and the longer he went without a visit, the more awkward the visit would be. But what if Joe had made a direct invitation: "Will you please join us at the Forge for dinner this Sunday, for your dear sister's sake?" Joe's afraid of rejection, perhaps; or feels he shouldn't have to ask; but, after a morning of calling Pip "sir" Joe becomes responsible for some of the distance between them. Unless you want to say, Joe is so simple and stupid that he doesn't bear equal responsibility. Maybe not until Pip accepts Joe fully can Pip shoulder his share of the responsibility in their relationship. And this, perhaps, is another of the gifts Pip receives from Magwitch. Pip feels himself superior to Magwitch, but is grateful towards him, and caring towards him, and patronizing towards him (not telling him the truth about the lost inheritance), and openly shows love towards him; then when Joe comes to take care of Pip while he's sick, Pip is able to adopt some of that same manner with Joe. And just to round out the discussion, I think one of the contributing factors to Pip and Joe's disengagement in Book 2 is the lack of an organizing maternal influence between them. Imagine if Biddy had been Pip's sister, instead of the live-in help -- she could have written a letter saying, "Joe would be so happy to see you. Why don't you come over for dinner this Sunday?" Sometimes a guy just needs to be told what to do. (As an aside, the whole business between Joe and Pip in Book 2 reminds me of what Mr. Emerson said to Lucy in A Room with a View: Take an old man's word; there's nothing worse than a muddle in all the world. It is easy to face Death and Fate, and the things that sound so dreadful. It is on my muddles that I look back with horror--on the things that I might have avoided.)(3) The last scene with Estella. To me, "He saw no shadow of another parting" means he had no problem saying goodbye, because their parting would have no dark side (no shadow). This parting wouldn't impact him the way the last one did. They walk away from the ruins, knowing that what happened there will always be a part of them, but letting go of the physical, worldly aspects -- she's selling the property; he's comfortable never seeing her again. I've googled and read a lot about this ending, some people prefer the original and some prefer this one, but what I haven't seen mentioned is what a disservice both endings do to the character of Estella. Mr. Jaggers had predicted that either Drummle or she would be the winner, but how can any reader believe it would have turned out as it did, that she would have allowed Drummle's abuse to bend and soften her? She was too cold and strong for that. I believe she would have tricked him into his own death within a year, and ended up with all his money, in addition to her own. That's how Miss Haversham raised her to act, and there would have been a cold, bitter justice to it. (4) The real ending. I am surprised that some people find this to be a dark or unhappy book, because to me it seems like a happy ending, for Pip, for Joe and Biddy, for Herbert and Klara, regardless of the last few paragraphs with Estella. Despite the fears he had when his life flashed before his eyes at the lime kiln, Pip lives to accomplish everything he feared would be left undone: he's at Magwitch's side until the end and brings him peace; he's able to open his heart to Joe and Biddy; he repays his debts; he takes joy in the happiness of Herbert and Klara, Joe and Biddy. And in the end he looks forward to being a good uncle to little Pip. Is it supposedly an unhappy ending just because he's not married himself? "A Christmas Carol" is considered to have a happy ending, and Scrooge doesn't come to regret his mistakes until the very end of his life: Pip figures it out in his mid-twenties. In the last paragraph of Chapter 59 (which should have been the last chapter in the book, in my opinion, leaving Estella's future an open question for another book), Pip says, "Many a year went round, before I was a partner in the House; but, I lived happily with Herbert and his wife, and lived frugally, and paid my debts, and maintained a constant correspondence with Biddy and Joe." He lived happily! How is that not a happy ending?
    • 3/5
      Great Expectations is a good book, but not awesome. Story is reasonably fast moving even though language is flowery and dialogues are noteworthy. There is undercurrent of humour and irony in whole narrative though never really explicit. Characters are engaging and some are even haunting too. That said, it always remains a mystery why this is considered popular classic and not others. There is not much substance to story but whole lot of emotional content without being melodramatic. Overall, I am glad that I read this, though I wouldn't have missed anything if I didn't.
    • 4/5
      I'm sure I've read Great Expectations before, or I tried to, but after I got to a certain point I didn't remember ever reading any of it before, so I think perhaps I never finished it. It does take some time and attention, certainly, but it was easier to read than I remember. I'm aware that Charles Dickens' novels contain a lot of social commentary, but I don't remember as much about the context as I'd have liked. So I'm not going to say anything on that score, and just talk about what I did and didn't enjoy about the book.

      It's written in first person, which makes the young Pip's voice kind of endearing at first, particularly his observations about what he imagines his parents to be like, from seeing their gravestones, etc. Pip does get less likeable later on, due to his great expectations, but a lot of the other characters are interesting. If one doesn't get on with Pip, I should think there's some other character one can get interested in.

      I found the characters the strongest thing in this book, while some of the writing felt like filler. Not too much so, but some. The characters, however, were strong -- strange, some of them, and others loveable. Or both. All the imagery that surrounds Miss Havisham sticks really strongly in my mind; I wanted to hug Herbert a lot; Mr Wemmick was fun, with his secret castle and his strong division between work and home. I was surprised at how fond I got of Magwitch, too, but he turns out to be a more sympathetic and sweet character than you'd expect.

      The two endings are interesting. I think I prefer the one in my edition, which I believe is the second one -- the happier one. It reads better, and less like a last minute thought, giving a bit more resolution.
    • 4/5
      This was my first foray into Dickens. I confess I had to read this twice to get immersed in the vernacular. Still, an enjoyable read of compromised Pip.
    • 2/5
      My least favorite of the five Dickens I have read, this one lacks almost anything that make the other ones great, or even enjoyable. The only sympathetic characters are minor ones (Joe, Biddy, Herbert, Wemmick), and underdeveloped. Pip himself is mostly obnoxious, and my ambivalence toward him as the narrator made it difficult to even care about the book over the first 100 pages or so. The story was terribly slow until Pip got to London, about 1/3 through 535 pages. There are no memorable villains, unless Ms. Havisham is supposed to occupy that slot. But the book´s later twist makes her and Estella's entire arc almost totally irrelevant. Orlick and Compeyson get about 10 pages devoted to them in total, hardly the stuff of satisfying external conflict (plus Mrs. Gargery's relation with Orlick is never resolved). The twists themselves take Dickens' notorious propensity for contrivance to an entirely new and ridiculous level.

      All I knew of the book coming into it was that it featured three of the more memorable characters in pop culture history: Pip, Estella, and Ms. Havisham. By the end, I was left wondering what precise purpose the latter two served, and if the book might indeed have been better overall had they been reduced in importance, or even left out entirely. Better for the reader would be to read either Bleak House or A Tale of Two Cities.
    • 4/5
      Book Two, where Dickens takes the twentysomething Pip to London and raises him with 'great expectations' is startling in how accurately it captures what it means to be a twentysomething - except I'm talking about how accurately it captures that sense in 2012. So Dickens is indeed, as it turns out, the writer everyone has told me he is: the fantastic chronicler of the human condition. I'm thoroughly impressed if I do say so myself. Still, the book does drag a bit here and there, so he still isn't that unparalleled talent I want him to be.

      At least I now know the basis for Miss Havisham, though - Jasper Fforde, you prepped me but also ruined me a little for the great classics.

      More about what I mentersay at RB: wp.me/pGVzJ-q8
    • 4/5
      Wonderful story and John Lee is the perfect narrator for this book. I would have given it 5 stars, but when you are paid by the word, as Dickens was, the stories can sometimes be a bit loooooooong.
    • 1/5
      I loathe this book. Why does the man have to describe every. single. thing. The story itself was torture.
    • 4/5
      A classic by Dickens, Great Expectations is the story of Pip. He is an orphan who, due to a mysterious benefactor, comes into a goodly sum of money or his “expectations”. This is written in first person and is told by an older Pip, a Pip who is not only older but wiser. It may be a rags-to-riches story, but it's not necessarily a happy story. It is a story about Pip, his harsh and cruel sister Mrs. Joe and her kind and fatherly husband Joe, an escaped convict Magwich, a beautiful but cruel girl Estella, and the corpse-like jilted bride Miss Havisham. The story centers around Pip and how, when he comes into his expectation, he becomes snobbish and unlikeable, looking down on Joe and his childhood friend, Biddy. He puts social position and class, etiquette and learning, gentility and leisure, above his friends. Eventually circumstances change (as they always do), and Pip learns a variety of lessons. I found the beginning of this novel a bit slow—though I am not sure why (maybe it was getting use to the dated language)—however I loved the last third of the novel—exciting, surprising & bittersweet. Particularly enjoyed being surprised by some of the characters—Magwich, Wemmick & Miss Havisham specifically. A 4 out of 5 stars.
    • 4/5
      This book was a great time.

      I tried to read it for years - I made it through by listening to in on my commute - but it's really really funny. This is the first Dickens books that I've really enjoyed since 'A Christmas Carol'. :)
    • 5/5
      My first time reading Dickens. I wasn't prepared for the humor and mystery in this novel. Wemmick's Castle and home life brought such comforting respite. Provis was no angel or do-gooder, and he didn't need to be. In the end, I personally could have done with or without Estella's return, but, oh, that faithful, awkward, dearest of Joes was irreplaceable! I was thrice brought to tears while reading about Pip and his two father-like figures in the last few chapters. It was quite refreshing to see Pip come to himself.
    • 2/5
      Not enough dialogue and too much monologue. Laughed out loud during the beginning of book due to the humor of being beaten in camaraderie between Joe and Pip but then the humor ended and the lengthy monologues began. I wanted many times to just put this book down but for the fact that this book was a classic a plowed on.
    • 2/5
      Thank you, English/Lit teachers of America. It gets a 2 because of your classes in which I HAD to read it. Of course it may have been merely your bad teaching that made it seem a 2. And to those of you who can actually teach, please pardon me. I wish I would have had you as an instructor.
    • 4/5
      I still like this story. Dickens always seems lame until I read him. Then I remember why he was the Stephen King/Tom Clancy of 19th Century Britain (in that he sold well and was long-winded). At least Dickens came right out and attacked the system.
    • 5/5
      A colleague told me that this was her favourite novel, so I just had to get stuck in and read this, especially as I've loved every novel by Dickens I've read so far. I found myself feeling sympathy for all of the characters in the novel, especially in the light of Pip's gradual repentance. At times it was unputdownable, and had a brief understanding of what it must have been like to have to wait for the next instalment when it was serialised in the nineteenth century. Make sure to read Dicken's original ending and then to make up your mind which you prefer! I personally liked the Hollywood ending, but the original was probably more realistic.
    • 5/5
      "Halloa!" said he. "Here's a couple of pair of gloves! Let's put 'em on!"As the gloves were white kid gloves, and as the post-office was widened to its utmost extent, I now began to have my strong suspicions. They were strengthened into certainty when I beheld the Aged enter at a side door, escorting a lady."Halloa!" said Wemmick. "Here's Miss Skiffins! Let's have a wedding."Where have you been all my life, Wemmick?

    Book preview

    Great Expectations (with a Preface by G. K. Chesterton and an Introduction by Andrew Lang) - Charles Dickens

    cover.jpg

    GREAT EXPECTATIONS

    By CHARLES DICKENS

    Preface by G. K. CHESTERTON

    Introduction by ANDREW LANG

    Great Expectations

    By Charles Dickens

    Preface by G. K. Chesterton

    Introduction by Andrew Lang

    Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-5136-3

    eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-5137-0

    This edition copyright © 2015. Digireads.com Publishing.

    All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

    Cover Image: A detail of Great Expectations, Estella arrives in Cheapside by coach from Rochester (colour litho), Brock, Charles Edmund (1870-1938) (after) / Private Collection / © Look and Learn / Bridgeman Images.

    Please visit www.digireads.com

    CONTENTS

    Preface

    Introduction

    Chapter 1

    Chapter 2

    Chapter 3

    Chapter 4

    Chapter 5

    Chapter 6

    Chapter 7

    Chapter 8

    Chapter 9

    Chapter 10

    Chapter 11

    Chapter 12

    Chapter 13

    Chapter 14

    Chapter 15

    Chapter 16

    Chapter 17

    Chapter 18

    Chapter 19

    Chapter 20

    Chapter 21

    Chapter 22

    Chapter 23

    Chapter 24

    Chapter 25

    Chapter 26

    Chapter 27

    Chapter 28

    Chapter 29

    Chapter 30

    Chapter 31

    Chapter 32

    Chapter 33

    Chapter 34

    Chapter 35

    Chapter 36

    Chapter 37

    Chapter 38

    Chapter 39

    Chapter 40

    Chapter 41

    Chapter 42

    Chapter 43

    Chapter 44

    Chapter 45

    Chapter 46

    Chapter 47

    Chapter 48

    Chapter 49

    Chapter 50

    Chapter 51

    Chapter 52

    Chapter 53

    Chapter 54

    Chapter 55

    Chapter 56

    Chapter 57

    Chapter 58

    Chapter 59

    BIOGRAPHICAL AFTERWORD

    Preface

    Great Expectations, which was written in the afternoon of Dickens’s life and fame, has a quality of serene irony and even sadness, which puts it quite alone among his other works. At no time could Dickens possibly be called cynical, he had too much vitality; but relatively to the other books this book is cynical; but it has the soft and gentle cynicism of old age, not the hard cynicism of youth. To be a young cynic is to be a young brute; but Dickens, who had been so perfectly romantic and sentimental in his youth, could afford to admit this touch of doubt into the mixed experience of his middle age. At no time could any books by Dickens have been called Thackerayan. Both of the two men were too great for that. But relatively to the other Dickensian productions this book may be called Thackerayan. It is a study in human weakness and the slow human surrender. It describes how easily a free lad of fresh and decent instincts can be made to care more for rank and pride and the degrees of our stratified society than for old affection and for honour. It is an extra chapter to The Book of Snobs.

    The best way of stating the change which this book marks in Dickens can be put in one phrase. In this book for the first time the hero disappears. The hero had descended to Dickens by a long line which begins with the gods, nay, perhaps if one may say so, which begins with God. First comes Deity and then the image of Deity; first comes the god and then the demi-god, the Hercules who labors and conquers before he receives his heavenly crown. That idea, with continual mystery and modification, has continued behind all romantic tales; the demi-god became the hero of paganism; the hero of paganism became the knight-errant of Christianity; the knight-errant who wandered and was foiled before he triumphed became the hero of the later prose romance, the romance in which the hero had to fight a duel with the villain but always survived, in which the hero drove desperate horses through the night in order to rescue the heroine, but always rescued her.

    This heroic modern hero, this demi-god in a top-hat, may be said to reach his supreme moment and typical example about the time when Dickens was writing that thundering and thrilling and highly unlikely scene in Nicholas Nickleby, the scene where Nicholas hopelessly denounces the atrocious Gride in his hour of grinning triumph, and a thud upon the floor above tells them that the heroine’s tyrannical father has died just in time to set her free. That is the apotheosis of the pure heroic as Dickens found it, and as Dickens in some sense continued it. It may be that it does not appear with quite so much unmistakable Youth, beauty, valour, and virtue as it does in Nicholas Nickleby. Walter Gay is a simpler and more careless hero, but when he is doing any of the business of the story he is purely heroic. Kit Nubbles is a humbler hero, but he is a hero; when he is good he is very good. Even David Copperfield, who confesses to boyish tremors and boyish evasions in his account of his boyhood, acts the strict stiff part of the chivalrous gentleman in all the active and determining scenes of the tale. But Great Expectations may be called, like Vanity Fair, a novel without a hero. Almost all Thackeray’s novels except Esmond are novels without a hero, but only one of Dickens’s novels can be so described. I do not mean that it is a novel without a jeune premier, a young man to make love; Pickwick is that and Oliver Twist, and, perhaps, The Old Curiosity Shop. I mean that it is a novel without a hero in the same far deeper and more deadly sense in which Pendennis is also a novel without a hero. I mean that it is a novel which aims chiefly at showing that the hero is unheroic. All such phrases as these must appear of course to overstate the case. Pip is a much more delightful person than Nicholas Nickleby. Or to take a stronger case for the purpose of our argument, Pip is a much more delightful person than Sydney Carton. Still the fact remains. Most of Nicholas Nickleby’s personal actions are meant to show that he is heroic. Most of Pip’s actions are meant to show that he is not heroic. The study of Sydney Carton is meant to indicate that with all his vices Sydney Carton was a hero. The study of Pip is meant to indicate that with all his virtues Pip was a snob. The motive of the literary explanation is different. Pip and Pendennis are meant to show how circumstances can corrupt men. Sam Weller and Hercules are meant to show how heroes can subdue circumstances.

    This is the preliminary view of the book which is necessary if we are to regard it as a real and separate fact in the life of Dickens. Dickens had many moods because he was an artist; but he had one great mood, because he was a great artist. Any real difference therefore from the general drift, or rather (I apologize to Dickens) the general drive of his creation is very important. This is the one place in his work in which he does, I will not say feel like Thackeray, far less think like Thackeray, less still write like Thackeray, but this is the one of his works in which he understands Thackeray. He puts himself in some sense in the same place; he considers mankind at somewhat the same angle as mankind is considered in one of the sociable and sarcastic novels of Thackeray. When he deals with Pip he sets out not to show his strength like the strength of Hercules, but to show his weakness like the weakness of Pendennis. When he sets out to describe Pip’s great expectation he does not set out, as in a fairy tale, with the idea that these great expectations will be fulfilled; he sets out from the first with the idea that these great expectations will be disappointing. We might very well, as I have remarked elsewhere, apply to all Dickens’s books the title Great Expectations. All his books are full of an airy and yet ardent expectation of everything; of the next person who shall happen to speak, of the next chimney that shall happen to smoke, of the next event, of the next ecstasy; of the next fulfillment of any eager human fancy. All his books might be called Great Expectations. But the only book to which he gave the name of Great Expectations was the only book in which the expectation was never realised. It was so with the whole of that splendid and unconscious generation to which he belonged. The whole glory of that old English middle class was that it was unconscious; its excellence was entirely in that, that it was the culture of the nation, and that it did not know it. If Dickens had ever known that he was optimistic, he would have ceased to be happy.

    It is necessary to make this first point clear: that in Great Expectations Dickens was really trying to be a quiet, a detached, and even a cynical observer of human life. Dickens was trying to be Thackeray. And the final and startling triumph of Dickens is this: that even to this moderate and modern story, he gives an incomparable energy which is not moderate and which is not modern. He is trying to be reasonable; but in spite of himself he is inspired. He is trying to be detailed, but in spite of himself he is gigantic. Compared to the rest of Dickens this is Thackeray; but compared to the whole of Thackeray we can only say in supreme praise of it that it is Dickens.

    Take, for example, the one question of snobbishness. Dickens has achieved admirably the description of the doubts and vanities of the wretched Pip as he walks down the street in his new gentlemanly clothes, the clothes of which he is so proud and so ashamed. Nothing could be so exquisitely human, nothing especially could be so exquisitely masculine as that combination of self-love and self-assertion and even insolence with a naked and helpless sensibility to the slightest breath of ridicule. Pip thinks himself better than everyone else, and yet anybody can snub him; that is the everlasting male, and perhaps the everlasting gentleman. Dickens has described perfectly this quivering and defenceless dignity. Dickens has described perfectly how ill-armed it is against the coarse humor of real humanity—the real humanity which Dickens loved, but which idealists and philanthropists do not love, the humanity of cabmen and costermongers and men singing in a third-class carriage; the humanity of Trabb’s boy. In describing Pip’s weakness Dickens is as true and as delicate as Thackeray. But Thackeray might have been easily as true and as delicate as Dickens. This quick and quiet eye for the tremors of mankind is a thing which Dickens possessed, but which others possessed also. George Eliot or Thackeray could have described the weakness of Pip. Exactly what George Eliot and Thackeray could not have described was the vigour of Trabb’s boy. There would have been admirable humor and observation in their accounts of that intolerable urchin. Thackeray would have given us little light touches of Trabb’s boy, absolutely true to the quality and color of the humor, just as in his novels of the eighteenth century, the glimpses of Steele or Bolingbroke or Doctor Johnson are exactly and perfectly true to the color and quality of their humor. George Eliot in her earlier books would have given us shrewd authentic scraps of the real dialect of Trabb’s boy, just as she gave us shrewd and authentic scraps of the real talk in a Midland country town. In her later books she would have given us highly rationalistic explanations of Trabb’s boy; which we should not have read. But exactly what they could never have given, and exactly what Dickens does give, is the bounce of Trabb’s boy. It is the real unconquerable rush and energy in a character which was the supreme and quite indescribable greatness of Dickens. He conquered by rushes; he attacked in masses; he carried things at the spear point in a charge of spears; he was the Rupert of Fiction. The thing about any figure of Dickens, about Sam Weller or Dick Swiveller, or Micawber, or Bagstock, or Trabb’s boy,—the thing about each one of these persons is that he cannot be exhausted. A Dickens character hits you first on the nose and then in the waistcoat, and then in the eye and then in the waistcoat again, with the blinding rapidity of some battering engine. The scene in which Trabb’s boy continually overtakes Pip in order to reel and stagger as at a first encounter is a thing quite within the real competence of such a character; it might have been suggested by Thackeray, or George Eliot, or any realist. But the point with Dickens is that there is a rush in the boy’s rushings; the writer and the reader rush with him. They start with him, they stare with him, they stagger with him, they share an inexpressible vitality in the air which emanates from this violent and capering satirist. Trabb’s boy is among other things a boy; he has a physical rapture in hurling himself like a boomerang and in bouncing to the sky like a ball. It is just exactly in describing this quality that Dickens is Dickens and that no one else comes near him. No one feels in his bones that Felix Holt was strong as he feels in his bones that little Quilp was strong. No one can feel that even Rawdon Crawley’s splendid smack across the face of Lord Steyne is quite so living and life-giving as the kick after kick which old Mr. Weller dealt the dancing and quivering Stiggins as he drove him towards the trough. This quality, whether expressed intellectually or physically, is the profoundly popular and eternal quality in Dickens; it is the thing that no one else could do. This quality is the quality which has always given its continuous power and poetry to the common people everywhere. It is life; it is the joy of life felt by those who have nothing else but life. It is the thing that all aristocrats have always hated and dreaded in the people. And it is the thing which poor Pip really hates and dreads in Trabb’s boy.

    A great man of letters or any great artist is symbolic without knowing it. The things he describes are types because they are truths. Shakespeare may, or may not, have ever put it to himself that Richard the Second was a philosophical symbol; but all good criticism must necessarily see him so. It may be a reasonable question whether the artist should be allegorical. There can be no doubt among sane men that the critic should be allegorical. Spenser may have lost by being less realistic than Fielding. But any good criticism of Tom Jones must be as mystical as the Faerie Queen. Hence it is unavoidable in speaking of a fine book like Great Expectations that we should give even to its unpretentious and realistic figures a certain massive mysticism. Pip is Pip, but he is also the well-meaning snob. And this is even more true of those two great figures in the tale which stand for the English democracy. For, indeed, the first and last word upon the English democracy is said in Joe Gargery and Trabb’s boy. The actual English populace, as distinct from the French populace or the Scotch or Irish populace, may be said to lie between those two types. The first is the poor man who does not assert himself at all, and the second is the poor man who asserts himself entirely with the weapon of sarcasm. The only way in which the English now ever rise in revolution is under the symbol and leadership of Trabb’s boy. What pikes and shillelahs were to the Irish populace, what guns and barricades were to the French populace, that chaff is to the English populace. It is their weapon, the use of which they really understand. It is the one way in which they can make a rich man feel uncomfortable, and they use it very justifiably for all it is worth. If they do not cut off the heads of tyrants at least they sometimes do their best to make the tyrants lose their heads. The gutter boys of the great towns carry the art of personal criticism to so rich and delicate a degree that some well-dressed persons when they walk past a file of them feel as if they were walking past a row of omniscient critics or judges with a power of life and death. Here and there only is some ordinary human custom, some natural human pleasure suppressed in deference to the fastidiousness of the rich. But all the rich tremble before the fastidiousness of the poor.

    Of the other type of democracy it is far more difficult to speak. It is always hard to speak of good things or good people, for in satisfying the soul they take away a certain spur to speech. Dickens was often called a sentimentalist. In one sense he sometimes was a sentimentalist. But if sentimentalism be held to mean something artificial or theatrical, then in the core and reality of his character Dickens was the very reverse of a sentimentalist. He seriously and definitely loved goodness. To see sincerity and charity satisfied him like a meal. What some critics call his love of sweet stuff is really his love of plain beef and bread. Sometimes one is tempted to wish that in the long Dickens dinner the sweet courses could be left out; but this does not make the whole banquet other than a banquet singularly solid and simple. The critics complain of the sweet things, but not because they are so strong as to like simple things. They complain of the sweet things because they are so sophisticated as to like sour things; their tongues are tainted with the bitterness of absinthe. Yet because of the very simplicity of Dickens’s moral tastes it is impossible to speak adequately of them; and Joe Gargery must stand as he stands in the book, a thing too obvious to be understood. But this may be said of him in one of his minor aspects, that he stands for a certain long-suffering in the English poor, a certain weary patience and politeness which almost breaks the heart. One cannot help wondering whether that great mass of silent virtue will ever achieve anything on this earth.

    G. K. CHESTERTON

    1907.

    Introduction

    Great Expectations began its career in All the Year Round, in December, 1860. When finished it appeared, without illustrations, in the three-volume form then usual; in this state it is not a very easy book to procure. In October, 1860, All the Year Round was falling off in circulation. Its Old Man of the Sea was Charles Lever’s A Day’s Ride, a Life’s Romance, and the Ride was as endless as that contemplated by the lover in Mr. Browning’s poem, while the Romance was not attractive to the public taste. Mr. Forster had been inviting him to let himself loose upon some single humorous conception, in the vein of his youthful achievements in that way. It is not so easy to find the Fountain of Youth, but Dickens had developed an idea for a little piece—such a very fine, new, and grotesque idea, that I begin to doubt whether I had not better cancel the little paper, and reserve the notion for a new book. You can judge as soon as I get it printed. But it so opens out before me that I can now see the whole of a serial revolving in it, in a most singular and comic manner. The idea was Pip and Magwitch, the child and the convict, itself in turn, perhaps, the germ of Mr. Anstey’s Burglar Bill, and of a novel called Editha’s Burglar. The contrast of infantine innocence with the grimy inveterate iniquity of the hulks, and the consequent conversion, is so patent, and so appeals to the popular love of the obvious, that it was a fine theme for Mr. Anstey’s banter. But Dickens, by his humor, and by a pathos restrained in this admirable romance, avoided the obvious. He thought of writing the book in the old way, by twenty monthly numbers. Luckily he did not. The scheme of twenty numbers worked woe on The Newcomes and Pendennis, as well as on several of Dickens’s own works. The field was too large; in one way or another such lengthy tales had to be padded. The attention was always being diverted from the central interest. Concision and selection became almost impossible.

    Fortunately, therefore, the heavy and the weary weight of the Old Man of the Sea, in All the Year Round, made it necessary for Dickens to bestir himself. He wrote his new tale for his serial, consequently, on a smaller and more manageable scale. He aimed at a novel of the length of the Tale of Two Cities. "The name is Great Expectations, I think a good name? . . . By dashing in now, I come when most wanted, and, if Reade and Wilkie [Collins] follow me, our course will be shaped out handsomely and hopefully for between two and three .years. A thousand pounds are to be paid for early proofs of the story to America." This was before editions of English novels were given away, in America, as bonuses on the purchase of soap, concerning which, in one case, Miss Kendall sings—

    "Our hands were never half so clean,

    Our customers agree;

    And our beliefs have never been

    So utterly at sea!"

    Dickens explained to Mr. Forster, "The book will be written in the first person throughout, and during the first three weekly numbers you will find the hero to be a boy-child, like David [Copperfield]. Then he will be an apprentice. You will not have to complain of the want of humour, as in the Tale of Two Cities. I have made the opening, I hope, in its general effect extremely droll." He had indeed. If a personal anecdote in proof may be offered, I would say that, as a boy, I heard the opening read aloud, by the master of my house (Professor D’Arcy Thompson now), while we partook, in enormous quantities, of the refreshment of tea. I do well remember being convulsed almost to hysterics, and positively weeping with laughter, while, I regret to say, the other boys, using a footstool as football, were enjoying a lively scrimmage under the table. The ball was kicked out of scrimmage, attracted the observation of my kind and learned house-master, and led him to conceive but a poor opinion of the young Scot’s capacity for literary enjoyment. But the magic of Great Expectations has not been altered, for me, by thirty-seven long years. Pip, and the dogs, and the veal-cutlets, and the velvet coach, and the flags; Pip and the pale young gentleman; Pip as a Bolter—I’ve been a Bolter, myself, as a boy, and I’ve seen a many Bolters; Pip and Mr. Pumblechook; Mr. Pumblechook when they gave him a dozen, and filled his mouth with flowering annuals; Trabb’s boy;—a hundred other delightful passages, must be unforgotten while memory endures.

    Dickens read David Copperfield, to avoid repetition. He did not repeat himself. The use of the first person was serviceable to him (as I have remarked before), just because it prevented him from being his own real first person, and digressing into extravagance, and Carol philosophy. Thus Copperfield and Great Expectations are his best novels (Pickwick being something else, a modern humorous Odyssey), and, of the two, Great Expectations is the better constructed. The comic countryman who overhears everything is given a holiday. The story turns on the pivot spoken of by Dickens, and does not spin off’ it, and wander through space, an erratic meteorite. There is a moral, not to be a snob, when the temptation so to be is peculiarly strong, blending, as it does, with the ignorant diffidence of a boy born to be refined in intellect, but born among friends not, in a worldly sense, refined in manners. Not to be ashamed of them is no such light task, and we can sympathize with the erring Pip, if we cannot approve. Then, Joe Gargery is infinitely the most sympathetic of all Dickens’s many sketches of humble worth, and moral dignity with a horny hand. Joe is a real friend, and really humorous, as well as gentle. Dickens, writing to Forster, calls Joe a foolish good-natured man. A foolish man could not have been in such perfect sympathy with a child of genius and humor, the victim of Tickler. Wot larx! is a valuable household word.

    Dickens, like Thackeray, was excellent in drawing boys. Neither Shakespeare nor Scott took much notice of boys, in play or novel; but the two great contemporaries reveled in their grave absurdities, their savage virtues, their love of books (not very common), their queer untaught philosophies and forecastings of things. Thackeray saw, or noted, less of the contemplative boy, for the childhood of Harry Esmond produced none of such reflections as Pip made on the little graves. There were a dozen, in fact, in Cooling churchyard. But Dickens moderated the humorous exuberance of actual fact. Mr. Forster observes on the accuracy with which Dickens etches in the desolate church, lying out among the marshes, seven miles from Gadshill, near the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing the sea.

    The character of Pip chiefly resembles that of little David Copperfield in the elfin kind of fancies which occur to a small boy brought up among his seniors. Pip has not David’s library, and knows not Tom Jones, but his mind is naturally imaginative and distinguished. He is an observer, as Dickens and David Copperfield were from infancy observers. His fancy is vivid almost to hallucination, in Mr. Lewes’s phrase.{1} What can be more clearly seen than the scurry through the marshes after the convict? What more naturally humorous than Mr. Wopsle’s heartfelt conviction that he took the lead? Mr. Wopsle, the parish-clerk cabotin, is worthy of a place in the Crummles company. His ambition, his unwavering belief in the artistic jealousy of the man who acts the Majesty of Denmark, the solemnity of his reading of Hamlet, his prodigious swallow for compliments, massive and concrete, and a kind of childlike harmless innocence about him, endear Mr. Wopsle to the reader, and make him one of Dickens’s best minor characters.

    We may not be much in love with Estella, but the last scene, when long love does not end like a word spoken, is infinitely more true and affecting than any in the amours of Nicholas Nickleby or Rose Maylie, or any other of the jeunes premières and insipid ingénues. Moreover, Estella’s education was so unique, and her all from her high ideas of her social place so much deeper than even Pip’s, that we can understand and partly sympathize with her. Miss Havisham was, I believe, founded on fact, and I once passed, when in bad health, a far from agreeable night in the room where the original of the character used to sit, in her moldering, dropping bridal garments. They say she walks, remarked my host kindly, as he said good-night. She certainly did not walk for my purposes, and perhaps the family story grew out of the novel, not the novel out of the story. Miss Havisham, at all events, is not an inconceivable fantasy. The strange scene in which Pip sees her hallucinatory form hanging to a beam in the brewery appears to lead to nothing, yet looks as if it had been intended to lead to something. Perhaps it is more eerie just as it stands, a shadow unrealized, a flicker risen out of an unconscious thought.

    The family of Pocket, except the father of Herbert, Herbert himself, and his amusingly maddening mother, rather suggest the circle of relations who haunted old Martin Chuzzlewit. Such repetitions occur in the work of the greatest writers. Mr. Jaggers of the scented soap is perfectly original and interesting, while Wemmick’s mannerisms are too kindly to be resented. Aged P., too, is friendly—the old min is friendly, to quote Mr. Richard Swiveller. The convict, on his second avatar, happily escapes the maudlin, into which a popular writer might so easily have declined. His jack-knife and greasy black Testament are in excellent keeping, and Pip, shrinking from honest Joe, was to shrink again from his awful benefactor, the real founder of his fortunes—not Mr. Pumblechook or another. The muddy massive malignity of Orlick is very powerfully drawn, and there is much subtlety in the animal-like efforts to propitiate him made by Pip’s paralyzed sister. Herbert Pocket is quite as good as Tommy Traddles, and we have a foolish liking for the invisible and obstreperous Old Bill Barley, not an eligible father-in-law.

    The relatively happy conclusion was an afterthought. Bulwer Lytton, who knew the public, insisted on it, and, as a member of the public, one is glad that he carried his point. Dickens made as pretty a little piece of writing as I could; and we rejoice that Estella did not marry a Shropshire doctor, who, perhaps, is to be congratulated. Every one, like the hero of the ballad, would like to marry his old true love, and, as it seldom occurs in life, let the ceremony be performed in romance.

    ANDREW LANG

    1899.

    Chapter 1

    My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.

    I give Pirrip as my father’s family name, on the authority of his tombstone and my sister—Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like, were unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father’s, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription, Also Georgiana Wife of the Above, I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly. To five little stone lozenges, each about a foot and a half long, which were arranged in a neat row beside their grave, and were sacred to the memory of five little brothers of mine—who gave up trying to get a living, exceedingly early in that universal struggle—I am indebted for a belief I religiously entertained that they had all been born on their backs with their hands in their trousers-pockets, and had never taken them out in this state of existence.

    Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things, seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain, that this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard; and that Philip Pirrip, late of this parish, and also Georgiana wife of the above, were dead and buried; and that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and Roger, infant children of the aforesaid, were also dead and buried; and that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dykes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond, was the river; and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing, was the sea; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry, was Pip.

    Hold your noise! cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among the graves at the side of the church porch. Keep still, you little devil, or I’ll cut your throat!

    A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limped, and shivered, and glared and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin.

    O! Don’t cut my throat, sir, I pleaded in terror. Pray don’t do it, sir.

    Tell us your name! said the man. Quick!

    Pip, sir.

    Once more, said the man, staring at me. Give it mouth!

    Pip. Pip, sir.

    Show us where you live, said the man. Pint out the place!

    I pointed to where our village lay, on the flat in-shore among the alder-trees and pollards, a mile or more from the church.

    The man, after looking at me for a moment, turned me upside down, and emptied my pockets. There was nothing in them but a piece of bread. When the church came to itself—for he was so sudden and strong that he made it go head over heels before me, and I saw the steeple under my feet—when the church came to itself, I say, I was seated on a high tombstone, trembling, while he ate the bread ravenously.

    You young dog, said the man, licking his lips, what fat cheeks you ha’ got.

    I believe they were fat, though I was at that time undersized for my years, and not strong.

    Darn me if I couldn’t eat em, said the man, with a threatening shake of his head, and if I han’t half a mind to’t!

    I earnestly expressed my hope that he wouldn’t, and held tighter to the tombstone on which he had put me; partly, to keep myself upon it; partly, to keep myself from crying.

    Now lookee here! said the man. Where’s your mother?

    There, sir! said I.

    He started, made a short run, and stopped and looked over his shoulder.

    There, sir! I timidly explained. Also Georgiana. That’s my mother.

    Oh! said he, coming back. And is that your father alonger your mother?

    Yes, sir, said I; him too; late of this parish.

    Ha! he muttered then, considering. Who d’ye live with—supposin’ you’re kindly let to live, which I han’t made up my mind about?

    My sister, sir—Mrs. Joe Gargery—wife of Joe Gargery, the blacksmith, sir.

    Blacksmith, eh? said he. And looked down at his leg.

    After darkly looking at his leg and me several times, he came closer to my tombstone, took me by both arms, and tilted me back as far as he could hold me; so that his eyes looked most powerfully down into mine, and mine looked most helplessly up into his.

    Now lookee here, he said, the question being whether you’re to be let to live. You know what a file is?

    Yes, sir.

    And you know what wittles is?

    Yes, sir.

    After each question he tilted me over a little more, so as to give me a greater sense of helplessness and danger.

    You get me a file. He tilted me again. And you get me wittles. He tilted me again. You bring ’em both to me. He tilted me again. Or I’ll have your heart and liver out. He tilted me again.

    I was dreadfully frightened, and so giddy that I clung to him with both hands, and said, If you would kindly please to let me keep upright, sir, perhaps I shouldn’t be sick, and perhaps I could attend more.

    He gave me a most tremendous dip and roll, so that the church jumped over its own weather-cock. Then, he held me by the arms, in an upright position on the top of the stone, and went on in these fearful terms:

    You bring me, to-morrow morning early, that file and them wittles. You bring the lot to me, at that old Battery over yonder. You do it, and you never dare to say a word or dare to make a sign concerning your having seen such a person as me, or any person sumever, and you shall be let to live. You fail, or you go from my words in any partickler, no matter how small it is, and your heart and your liver shall be tore out, roasted and ate. Now, I ain’t alone, as you may think I am. There’s a young man hid with me, in comparison with which young man I am a Angel. That young man hears the words I speak. That young man has a secret way pecooliar to himself, of getting at a boy, and at his heart, and at his liver. It is in wain for a boy to attempt to hide himself from that young man. A boy may lock his door, may be warm in bed, may tuck himself up, may draw the clothes over his head, may think himself comfortable and safe, but that young man will softly creep and creep his way to him and tear him open. I am a-keeping that young man from harming of you at the present moment, with great difficulty. I find it wery hard to hold that young man off of your inside. Now, what do you say?

    I said that I would get him the file, and I would get him what broken bits of food I could, and I would come to him at the Battery, early in the morning.

    Say Lord strike you dead if you don’t! said the man.

    I said so, and he took me down.

    Now, he pursued, you remember what you’ve undertook, and you remember that young man, and you get home!

    Goo-good night, sir, I faltered.

    Much of that! said he, glancing about him over the cold wet flat. I wish I was a frog. Or a eel!

    At the same time, he hugged his shuddering body in both his arms—clasping himself, as if to hold himself together—and limped towards the low church wall. As I saw him go, picking his way among the nettles, and among the brambles that bound the green mounds, he looked in my young eyes as if he were eluding the hands of the dead people, stretching up cautiously out of their graves, to get a twist upon his ankle and pull him in.

    When he came to the low church wall, he got over it, like a man whose legs were numbed and stiff, and then turned round to look for me. When I saw him turning, I set my face towards home, and made the best use of my legs. But presently I looked over my shoulder, and saw him going on again towards the river, still hugging himself in both arms, and picking his way with his sore feet among the great stones dropped into the marshes here and there, for stepping-places when the rains were heavy, or the tide was in.

    The marshes were just a long black horizontal line then, as I stopped to look after him; and the river was just another horizontal line, not nearly so broad nor yet so black; and the sky was just a row of long angry red lines and dense black lines intermixed. On the edge of the river I could faintly make out the only two black things in all the prospect that seemed to be standing upright; one of these was the beacon by which the sailors steered—like an unhooped cask upon a pole—an ugly thing when you were near it; the other a gibbet, with some chains hanging to it which had once held a pirate. The man was limping on towards this latter, as if he were the pirate come to life, and come down, and going back to hook himself up again. It gave me a terrible turn when I thought so; and as I saw the cattle lifting their heads to gaze after him, I wondered whether they thought so too. I looked all round for the horrible young man, and could see no signs of him. But, now I was frightened again, and ran home without stopping.

    Chapter 2

    My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I, and had established a great reputation with herself and the neighbours because she had brought me up by hand. Having at that time to find out for myself what the expression meant, and knowing her to have a hard and heavy hand, and to be much in the habit of laying it upon her husband as well as upon me, I supposed that Joe Gargery and I were both brought up by hand.

    She was not a good-looking woman, my sister; and I had a general impression that she must have made Joe Gargery marry her by hand. Joe was a fair man, with curls of flaxen hair on each side of his smooth face, and with eyes of such a very undecided blue that they seemed to have somehow got mixed with their own whites. He was a mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish, dear fellow—a sort of Hercules in strength, and also in weakness.

    My sister, Mrs. Joe, with black hair and eyes, had such a prevailing redness of skin that I sometimes used to wonder whether it was possible she washed herself with a nutmeg-grater instead of soap. She was tall and bony, and almost always wore a coarse apron, fastened over her figure behind with two loops, and having a square impregnable bib in front, that was stuck full of pins and needles. She made it a powerful merit in herself, and a strong reproach against Joe, that she wore this apron so much. Though I really see no reason why she should have worn it at all: or why, if she did wear it at all, she should not have taken it off, every day of her life.

    Joe’s forge adjoined our house, which was a wooden house, as many of the dwellings in our country were—most of them, at that time. When I ran home from the churchyard, the forge was shut up, and Joe was sitting alone in the kitchen. Joe and I being fellow-sufferers, and having confidences as such, Joe imparted a confidence to me, the moment I raised the latch of the door and peeped in at him opposite to it, sitting in the chimney corner.

    Mrs. Joe has been out a dozen times, looking for you, Pip. And she’s out now, making it a baker’s dozen.

    Is she?

    Yes, Pip, said Joe; and what’s worse, she’s got Tickler with her.

    At this dismal intelligence, I twisted the only button on my waistcoat round and round, and looked in great depression at the fire. Tickler was a wax-ended piece of cane, worn smooth by collision with my tickled frame.

    She sot down, said Joe, and she got up, and she made a grab at Tickler, and she Ram-paged out. That’s what she did, said Joe, slowly clearing the fire between the lower bars with the poker, and looking at it: she Ram-paged out, Pip.

    Has she been gone long, Joe? I always treated him as a larger species of child, and as no more than my equal.

    Well, said Joe, glancing up at the Dutch clock, she’s been on the Ram-page, this last spell, about five minutes, Pip. She’s a- coming! Get behind the door, old chap, and have the jack-towel betwixt you.

    I took the advice. My sister, Mrs. Joe, throwing the door wide open, and finding an obstruction behind it, immediately divined the cause, and applied Tickler to its further investigation. She concluded by throwing me—I often served as a connubial missile—at Joe, who, glad to get hold of me on any terms, passed me on into the chimney and quietly fenced me up there with his great leg.

    Where have you been, you young monkey? said Mrs. Joe, stamping her foot. Tell me directly what you’ve been doing to wear me away with fret and fright and worrit, or I’d have you out of that corner if you was fifty Pips, and he was five hundred Gargerys.

    I have only been to the churchyard, said I, from my stool, crying and rubbing myself.

    Churchyard! repeated my sister. If it warn’t for me you’d have been to the churchyard long ago, and stayed there. Who brought you up by hand?

    You did, said I.

    And why did I do it, I should like to know? exclaimed my sister.

    I whimpered, I don’t know.

    I don’t! said my sister. I’d never do it again! I know that. I may truly say I’ve never had this apron of mine off, since born you were. It’s bad enough to be a blacksmith’s wife (and him a Gargery) without being your mother.

    My thoughts strayed from that question as I looked disconsolately at the fire. For, the fugitive out on the marshes with the ironed leg, the mysterious young man, the file, the food, and the dreadful pledge I was under to commit a larceny on those sheltering premises, rose before me in the avenging coals.

    Hah! said Mrs. Joe, restoring Tickler to his station. Churchyard, indeed! You may well say churchyard, you two. One of us, by-the-bye, had not said it at all. You’ll drive me to the churchyard betwixt you, one of these days, and oh, a pr-r-recious pair you’d be without me!

    As she applied herself to set the tea-things, Joe peeped down at me over his leg, as if he were mentally casting me and himself up, and calculating what kind of pair we practically should make, under the grievous circumstances foreshadowed. After that, he sat feeling his right-side flaxen curls and whisker, and following Mrs. Joe about with his blue eyes, as his manner always was at squally times.

    My sister had a trenchant way of cutting our bread-and-butter for us, that never varied. First, with her left hand she jammed the loaf hard and fast against her bib—where it sometimes got a pin into it, and sometimes a needle, which we afterwards got into our mouths. Then she took some butter (not too much) on a knife and spread it on the loaf, in an apothecary kind of way, as if she were making a plaister—using both sides of the knife with a slapping dexterity, and trimming and moulding the butter off round the crust. Then, she gave the knife a final smart wipe on the edge of the plaister, and then sawed a very thick round off the loaf: which she finally, before separating from the loaf, hewed into two halves, of which Joe got one, and I the other.

    On the present occasion, though I was hungry, I dared not eat my slice. I felt that I must have something in reserve for my dreadful acquaintance, and his ally the still more dreadful young man. I knew Mrs. Joe’s housekeeping to be of the strictest kind, and that my larcenous researches might find nothing available in the safe. Therefore I resolved to put my hunk of bread-and-butter down the leg of my trousers.

    The effort of resolution necessary to the achievement of this purpose, I found to be quite awful. It was as if I had to make up my mind to leap from the top of a high house, or plunge into a great depth of water. And it was made the more difficult by the unconscious Joe. In our already-mentioned freemasonry as fellow-sufferers, and in his good-natured companionship with me, it was our evening habit to compare the way we bit through our slices, by silently holding them up to each other’s admiration now and then—which stimulated us to new exertions. To-night, Joe several times invited me, by the display of his fast-diminishing slice, to enter upon our usual friendly competition; but he found me, each time, with my yellow mug of tea on one knee, and my untouched bread-and-butter on the other. At last, I desperately considered that the thing I contemplated must be done, and that it had best be done in the least improbable manner consistent with the circumstances. I took advantage of a moment when Joe had just looked at me, and got my bread-and-butter down my leg.

    Joe was evidently made uncomfortable by what he supposed to be my loss of appetite, and took a thoughtful bite out of his slice, which he didn’t seem to enjoy. He turned it about in his mouth much longer than usual, pondering over it a good deal, and after all gulped it down like a pill. He was about to take another bite, and had just got his head on one side for a good purchase on it, when his eye fell on me, and he saw that my bread-and-butter was gone.

    The wonder and consternation with which Joe stopped on the threshold of his bite and stared at me, were too evident to escape my sister’s observation.

    What’s the matter now? said she, smartly, as she put down her cup.

    I say, you know! muttered Joe, shaking his head at me in very serious remonstrance. Pip, old chap! You’ll do yourself a mischief. It’ll stick somewhere. You can’t have chawed it, Pip.

    What’s the matter now? repeated my sister, more sharply than before.

    If you can cough any trifle on it up, Pip, I’d recommend you to do it, said Joe, all aghast. Manners is manners, but still your elth’s your elth.

    By this time, my sister was quite desperate, so she pounced on Joe, and, taking him by the two whiskers, knocked his head for a little while against the wall behind him: while I sat in the corner, looking guiltily on.

    Now, perhaps you’ll mention what’s the matter, said my sister, out of breath, you staring great stuck pig.

    Joe looked at her in a helpless way; then took a helpless bite, and looked at me again.

    You know, Pip, said Joe, solemnly, with his last bite in his cheek and speaking in a confidential voice, as if we two were quite alone, you and me is always friends, and I’d be the last to tell upon you, any time. But such a— he moved his chair and looked about the floor between us, and then again at me—such a most oncommon Bolt as that!

    Been bolting his food, has he? cried my sister.

    You know, old chap, said Joe, looking at me, and not at Mrs. Joe, with his bite still in his cheek, I Bolted, myself, when I was your age—frequent—and as a boy I’ve been among a many Bolters; but I never see your Bolting equal yet, Pip, and it’s a mercy you ain’t Bolted dead.

    My sister made a dive at me, and fished me up by the hair: saying nothing more than the awful words, You come along and be dosed.

    Some medical beast had revived Tar-water in those days as a fine medicine, and Mrs. Joe always kept a supply of it in the cupboard; having a belief in its virtues correspondent to its nastiness. At the best of times, so much of this elixir was administered to me as a choice restorative, that I was conscious of going about, smelling like a new fence. On this particular evening the urgency of my case demanded a pint of this mixture, which was poured down my throat, for my greater comfort, while Mrs. Joe held my head under her arm, as a boot would be held in a boot-jack. Joe got off with half a pint; but was made to swallow that (much to his disturbance, as he sat slowly munching and meditating before the fire), because he had had a turn. Judging from myself, I should say he certainly had a turn afterwards, if he had had none before.

    Conscience is a dreadful thing when it accuses man or boy; but when, in the case of a boy, that secret burden co-operates with another secret burden down the leg of his trousers, it is (as I can testify) a great punishment. The guilty knowledge that I was going to rob Mrs. Joe—I never thought I was going to rob Joe, for I never thought of any of the housekeeping property as his—united to the necessity of always keeping one hand on my bread-and-butter as I sat, or when I was ordered about the kitchen on any small errand, almost drove me out of my mind. Then, as the marsh winds made the fire glow and flare, I thought I heard the voice outside, of the man with the iron on his leg who had sworn me to secrecy, declaring that he couldn’t and wouldn’t starve until to-morrow, but must be fed now. At other times, I thought, What if the young man who was with so much difficulty restrained from imbruing his hands in me, should yield to a constitutional impatience, or should mistake the time, and should think himself accredited to my heart and liver to-night, instead of to-morrow! If ever anybody’s hair stood on end with terror, mine must have done so then. But, perhaps, nobody’s ever did?

    It was Christmas Eve, and I had to stir the pudding for next day, with a copper-stick, from seven to eight by the Dutch clock. I tried it with the load upon my leg (and that made me think afresh of the man with the load on his leg), and found the tendency of exercise to bring the bread-and-butter out at my ankle, quite unmanageable. Happily, I slipped away, and deposited that part of my conscience in my garret bedroom.

    Hark! said I, when I had done my stirring, and was taking a final warm in the chimney corner before being sent up to bed; was that great guns, Joe?

    Ah! said Joe. There’s another conwict off.

    What does that mean, Joe? said I.

    Mrs. Joe, who always took explanations upon herself, said, snappishly, Escaped. Escaped. Administering the definition like Tar-water.

    While Mrs. Joe sat with her head bending over her needlework, I put my mouth into the forms of saying to Joe, What’s a convict? Joe put his mouth into the forms of returning such a highly elaborate answer, that I could make out nothing of it but the single word Pip.

    There was a conwict off last night, said Joe, aloud, after sun-set-gun. And they fired warning of him. And now, it appears they’re firing warning of another.

    Who’s firing? said I.

    Drat that boy, interposed my sister, frowning at me over her work, what a questioner he is. Ask no questions, and you’ll be told no lies.

    It was not very polite to herself, I thought, to imply that I should be told lies by her, even if I did ask questions. But she never was polite, unless there was company.

    At this point, Joe greatly augmented my curiosity by taking the utmost pains to open his mouth very wide, and to put it into the form of a word that looked to me like sulks. Therefore, I naturally pointed to Mrs. Joe, and put my mouth into the form of saying her? But Joe wouldn’t hear of that, at all, and again opened his mouth very wide, and shook the form of a most emphatic word out of it. But I could make nothing of the word.

    Mrs. Joe, said I, as a last resort, I should like to know—if you wouldn’t much mind—where the firing comes from?

    Lord bless the boy! exclaimed my sister, as if she didn’t quite mean that, but rather the contrary. From the Hulks!

    Oh-h! said I, looking at Joe. Hulks!

    Joe gave a reproachful cough, as much as to say, Well, I told you so.

    And please what’s Hulks? said I.

    That’s the way with this boy! exclaimed my sister, pointing me out with her needle and thread, and shaking her head at me. Answer him one question, and he’ll ask you a dozen directly. Hulks are prison-ships, right ’cross th’ meshes. We always used that name for marshes, in our country.

    I wonder who’s put into prison-ships, and why they’re put there? said I, in a general way, and with quiet desperation.

    It was too much for Mrs. Joe, who immediately rose. I tell you what, young fellow, said she, I didn’t bring you up by hand to badger people’s lives out. It would be blame to me, and not praise, if I had. People are put in the Hulks because they murder, and because they rob, and forge, and do all sorts of bad; and they always begin by asking questions. Now, you get along to bed!

    I was never allowed a candle to light me to bed, and, as I went upstairs in the dark, with my head

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1