Great Expectations

Pip, an orphan raised in the Kent marshes, secretly helps the escaped convict Abel Magwitch before being introduced to the decaying household of Miss Havisham and her proud ward Estella. When an unknown benefactor finances Pip’s transformation into a London gentleman, he assumes that Miss Havisham intends him for Estella and begins to feel ashamed of his origins and of the loyal blacksmith Joe Gargery.

The truth about Pip’s fortune overturns his expectations and forces him to confront the human cost of ambition, class prejudice and self-deception. Set in the late Georgian and Regency world of prisons, transportation, debt and uncertain social mobility, the novel follows Pip’s moral education from childhood fear to compassion and responsibility.