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 life and fame. It was the penultimate novel Dickens completed, preceding Our Mutual Friend.
- In the Churchyard
- Christmas Day
- At Miss Havisham's
- The Pale Young Gentleman
- I Must Become a Gentleman!
- Great Expectations
- Learning to be a Gentleman
- Young Men in Love
- I Come of Age
- Abel Magwitch
- Secrets from the Past
- Escape
- Friends Together