Quotes from book
Great Expectations

Great Expectations

Great Expectations is the thirteenth novel by Charles Dickens and his penultimate completed novel, that depicts the education of an orphan nicknamed Pip . It is Dickens's second novel, after David Copperfield, to be fully narrated in the first person. The novel was first published as a serial 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.The novel is set in Kent and London in the early to mid-19th century and contains some of Dickens's most celebrated scenes, starting in a graveyard, where the young Pip is accosted by the escaped convict Abel Magwitch. Great Expectations is full of extreme imagery—poverty, prison ships and chains, and fights to the death—and has a colourful cast of characters who have entered popular culture. These include the eccentric Miss Havisham, the beautiful but cold Estella, and Joe, the unsophisticated and kind blacksmith. Dickens's themes include wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and the eventual triumph of good over evil. Great Expectations, which is popular both with readers and literary critics, has been translated into many languages and adapted numerous times into various media.


Charles Dickens photo
Charles Dickens photo
Charles Dickens photo
Charles Dickens photo
Charles Dickens photo

“Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded together…”

Source: Great Expectations (1860-1861), Ch. 27

Charles Dickens photo
Charles Dickens photo

“My guiding star always is, Get hold of portable property.”

Source: Great Expectations (1860-1861), Ch. 24

Charles Dickens photo
Charles Dickens photo
Charles Dickens photo

“Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule.”

Source: Great Expectations (1860-1861), Ch. 40

Charles Dickens photo
Charles Dickens photo

“Ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies.”

Source: Great Expectations (1860-1861), Ch. 2

Charles Dickens photo
Charles Dickens photo

“I had been to see Macbeth at the theatre a night or two before and she reminded me of the faces rising out of the witches' cauldron.”

Source: Great Expectations (1860-1861), Ch. 17; Pip describes Molly, Mr. Jaggers' housekeeper

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