Great Expectations By Charles Dickens

Great Expectations is one of Charles Dickens' most familiar and best loved stories.

It is set among the marshes of Kent and in London in the mid-1800s. The story starts with the terrifying encounter between Pip, and the escaped convict, Abel Magwitch, and is full of extreme imagery; desolation, bitterness and revenge, ambitions achieved and hopes dashed, friendship and betrayal, and fights to the death. It reflects the events of the time, Dickens' concerns, and the relationship between society and man; wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and the eventual triumph of good over evil.

There is a colourful cast of characters who continue to capture the modern imagination: the capricious Miss Havisham, the cold and beautiful Estella, Joe Gargery the kind and generous blacksmith, the dry and sycophantic Uncle Pumblechook, the mysterious lawyer Mr Jaggers and the eloquent and wise friend, Herbert Pocket.

Dickens felt Great Expectations was his best work, calling it "a very fine idea”.