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In the marshy mists of a village churchyard, a tiny orphan boy named Pip is suddenly terrified by a shivering, limping convict on the run. Years later, a supremely arrogant young Pip boards the coach to London where, by the grace of a mysterious benefactor, he will join the ranks of the idle rich and "become a gentleman." Finally, in the luminous mists of the village at evening, Pip the man meets Estella, his dazzingly beautiful tormentor, in a ruined garden--and lays to rest all the heartaches and illusions that his "great expectations" have brought upon him. Dickens`s biographer, Edgar H. Johnson, has said that—except for the author`s last-minute tampering with his original ending--Great Expectations is "the most perfectly constructed and perfectly written of all Dickens`s works." In John Irving`s Introduction to this edition, the novelist takes the view that Dickens`s revised ending is"far more that mirror of the quality of trust in the novel as a whole." Both versions of the ending are printed here.
ISBN - 9780553213423
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Pages : 560
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