Product Description

Great Expectations charts the progress of Pip from childhood through often painful experiences to adulthood, as he moves from the Kent marshes to busy, commercial London, encountering a variety of extraordinary characters ranging from Magwitch, the escaped convict, to Miss Havisham, locked up with her unhappy past and living with her ward, the arrogant, beautiful Estella. Pip must discover his true self, and his own set of values and priorities. Whether such values allow one to prosper in the complex world of early Victorian England is the major question posed by Great Expectations, one of Dickens's most fascinating, and disturbing, novels. This edition includes the original, discarded ending, Dickens's brief working notes, and the serial instalments and chapter divisions in different editions. It also uses the definitive Clarendon text.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #353497 in Books
• Published on: 1999-01
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .92" h x 5.78" w x 9.00" l, 1.48 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 748 pages

Robert L. Patten, Rice University
I think the Norton Great Expectations is an editorial masterpiece. No one who teaches this novel or presumes to study it ... should hereafter select any other edition. [Rosenberg's] breathtaking allusions to other monuments of Western culture stretch readers to wider horizons and more comprehensive judgments of Dickens's place in our literary heritage.

Philip Collins, University of Leicester
Rosenberg is the wittiest and sprightliest of Dickensian commentators, so his editorial matter, lightly carrying a heavy load of scholarship, is a joy to read.

Fred Kaplan, City University of New York Graduate Center
Both a brilliant contribution to scholarship and an excellent reading edition with helpful notes and secondary material: