Great Expectations
Penguin Classics · first published 1861 · 544 pages
A village orphan is suddenly given money and the prospect of becoming a gentleman by a benefactor who will not be named.
The older narrator looks back on his younger self with tenderness and embarrassment, and the odd figures around him are drawn with great relish.
For a night of fog over the marshes.
About this book
Pip is raised by his harsh sister and her gentle husband, a blacksmith, on the Kent marshes. A frightening meeting with an escaped convict and visits to a strange old woman in a decaying house shape his idea of what he wants. When news comes of an anonymous fortune, he leaves for London to learn to be a gentleman, and grows ashamed of where he came from. The question of what makes a person good stays close throughout.