Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (Epub)

Description

Great Expectations is Charles Dickens’s thirteenth novel. It is his second novel, after David Copperfield, to be fully narrated in the first person. Great Expectations is a bildungsroman, or a coming-of-age novel, and it is a classic work of Victorian literature. It depicts the growth and personal development of an orphan named Pip. The novel was first published in serial form in Dickens’s weekly periodical All the Year Round, from 1 December 1860 to August 1861.

In October 1861, Chapman and Hall published the novel in three volumes. Dickens originally intended Great Expectations to be twice as long, but constraints imposed by the management of All the Year Round limited the novel’s length. The novel is collected and dense, with a conciseness unusual for Dickens. According to G. K. Chesterton, Dickens penned Great Expectations in “the afternoon of [his] life and fame.” It was the penultimate novel Dickens completed, preceding Our Mutual Friend. It is set among the marshes of Kent and in London in the early to mid-1800s. The novel contains some of Dickens most memorable scenes, including its opening, in a graveyard, when the young orphan Pip is accosted by the escaped convict, Abel Magwitch.

Great Expectations is a graphic book, full of extreme imagery, poverty, prison ships (“the hulks”), barriers and chains, and fights to the death. Upon its release, Thomas Carlyle spoke of “All that Pip’s nonsense.” Later, George Bernard Shaw praised the novel as “All of one piece and consistently truthful.” Dickens felt Great Expectations was his best work, calling it “a very fine idea,” and was very sensitive to compliments from his friends: “Bulwer, who has been, as I think you know, extraordinarily taken by the book. “Great Expectations has a colorful cast that has entered popular culture: the capricious Miss Havisham, the cold and beautiful Estella, Joe the kind and generous blacksmith, the dry and sycophantic Uncle Pumblechook, Mr. Jaggers, Wemmick with his dual personality, and the eloquent and wise friend, Herbert Pocket.

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Reviews from Amazon users, collected at the time the book is getting published on UniedVRG. It can be related to shiping or paper quality instead of the book content:

⭐ To read Great Expectations is a humbling experience: How can someone write such an exceptional novel!? We even feel ridiculous praising it. Who are we to talk about it?!This audio book gives justice to the greatness of the novel. It’s extremely well read and it’s a pleasure to hear. A total of 18 hours that are 18 hours of sheer pleasure.

⭐ This book was assigned reading in grade 10 or 11, I can’t remember which, but I just couldn’t get into it then. Now, many years later I really enjoyed it. Poverty, high society, fortunes gained and lost, love denied, adventures, drama, murder, twists and turns and surprises – all made this a very interesting novel to spend time in.

⭐ I’m generally not a fan of old books and old authors. For their time, I’m sure they were the greatest, but some just don’t hold up well to time. This one, however, sure does. There were twists in the book I just wasn’t expecting, and Charles Dickens’ writing and grammar add old-time character to his stories without making it overly hard to understand in our current lexicon.Great plot, steady pacing, developed characters you end up feeling for. And it all happens in a way that you don’t realize until a plot twist. Extremely well done book.

⭐ I hadn’t read Charles Dickens in a while and decided it was about time to do it again. As soon as I started Great Expectations, I remember why it had been so long since the last Dickens: the language is hard (I am not a native speaker, not sure how this applies to others), the reading goes slowly, the form distracts me from the story.I am sure this book is very well written, but next time I see a Dickens book, I will pass. There are so many great books around, where I am able to appreciate both writing and plot, I will rather search for those – but of course, this is just my personal preference, does not take away from Dickens’ talent and greatness.

⭐ One of the best books ever written, this book shows how our individual theories on why persons known to us behave. It also shows how the exuberance of youth, when we believe ourselves to be immortal, must be tempered. This tempering can only come with life experience and its necessary companion, time. The nature of how we humans relate to one another is also explored in various ways. The story also shows that experience can be a painful, even brutal teacher. The entire story is a contrast in what we seem to see (and therefore assume) and the truth of reality. I wish that I had read this book at a much younger age. (I would have given it five stars, but some parts are a bit lengthy and hard to read.)

⭐ Are you looking for something different to read? Like me, did you somehow fail to read this book in your years at school? Over my lifetime I have sometimes found it difficult to make my way through the older classics–mostly due to the antiquated style of language. They simply felt wordy and slushy going into them. We are trained, in this day and age, to want a faster, sharper payoff. But having recently watched a movie entitled “Mr. Pip” about a man in Papua New Guinea who takes on the overwhelming task of teaching schoolchildren during violent times, I became interested in trying Great Expectations. I am 58, and so soon I realized I had began some long time ago to read the book… was recognizing passages as I went along, for about 60 pages. Then I knew nothing, any longer, of the story.I am happy I stuck with it. It still felt wordy to me at times, but I enjoyed relaxing and taking in the old language. I found Mr. Dickens’ writing to be rich, in a way any era might respect, if using an open mind. I chuckled a hundred times, wept a few, and cheered as well. I loved its protagonists and despised its villains. It is a masterpiece for a reason. Dickens draws a character without fear or shyness of overindulgence. His people can seem almost caricatures visually… but in a most believable way per substance.Pip’s mistakes, I found, mirrored some of my own and in this way I see that time does march on even as we humans remain, well, imperfectly human. The story actually felt comforting to me. The very last paragraph left me wondering in a way that did feel like just a little bit of a letdown… but all in all I feel my time reading was truly well invested. A pleasure.

⭐ I read this because my son had to read it for his 9th grade english class. For a younger reader the language can be difficult, so I helped him as much as I could. I thoroughly enjoyed the story though! I like Dickens’ since of humor as well as the way he kept you hanging on wondering just how this was going to end. As we get farther and farther away from the lifestyle of the 1800’s I think it is important to look back and see what life was like before technology. I also enjoy the British take on things. I don’t always “get it” until I re-read it a time or two, but the humor is there. (SPOILER ALERT!) I actually thought the ending was sad until my son pointed out that in class they considered the fact that when Pip “saw no shadow of another parting from her,” could mean that they were never seperated again. Duh! Like I said, old language and another time!!

⭐ Charles Dickens’ writing is so excellent, that there hasn’t been anything that I’ve read of his that I didn’t like, albeit, some more than others. The ending was a bit undefined and left to the reader’s interpretation, which frustrated me some. The challenge to reading Dickens and other authors of his period, is that I often find myself having to look up words from his writing in a dictionary, as they are not commonly used in modern venacular. The great thing about having a Kindle now is that I can look up a word using the dictionary on my Kindle! I do wish that the makers of Kindle could figure out a way to include definitions of slang terms that were used in the period that a book was written, as those are not covered in a dictionary. I sometimes just have to figure out the meaning using context clues.

⭐ I am amazed that it took me 61 years to get around to reading this book. I wish I had read it a long time ago. The Kindle version is great, though. Even though I am a trainer of English teachers, I found many vocabulary words that were unfamiliar. A right click gives an instant dictionary, and I had to use that feature more than I liked, along with a big font.The characters are amazingly well described, even as they develop chronologically, and although some aspects of the story are predictable (i.e Joseph the blacksmith and Biddy’s romance) some are completly unanticipated and surprising.I like the ending in this version- it leaves hopeful possibilities!For free, this is the best bargain I ever purchased- hours of joy- so thank you Amazon…

⭐ I am a sincere fan of Charles Dickens. I have a hard time criticizing anything that this great novelist wrote, and this particular novel is no different. Great Expectations takes the reader on a journey with the main character Pip through many trials and hardships, but I have to admit that a good deal of this novel contains internal conflict.If you enjoy angst-ridden characters that strive to achieve more, than I would suggest picking this novel up for at least a few hours and give it a chance!

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