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The thirteenth and penultimate novel by Charles Dickens, ¿Great Expectations¿ chronicles the education of Pip, an orphan living in mid-nineteenth century London. Including such themes as wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and triumph over evil, this novel represents a classic example of Dickensian literature not to be missed by lovers of his work. Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812¿1870) was an English writer and social critic famous for having created some of the world's most well-known fictional characters. His works became unprecedentedly popular during his life, and today he is commonly regarded as the greatest Victorian-era novelist. Although perhaps better known for such works as ¿Oliver Twist¿ or ¿A Christmas Carol¿, Dickens first gained success with the 1836 serial publication of ¿The Pickwick Papers¿, which turned him almost overnight into an international literary celebrity thanks to his humour, satire, and astute observations concerning society and character. This classic work is being republished now in a new edition complete with an introductory chapter from ¿Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens¿ by G. K. Chesterton.
About the author
Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, in Portsea, England. His parents were middle-class and suffered financially. When Dickens was twelve years old, his family faced financial crisis, which forced him to quit school and work in a shoe polish manufacturing factory. Dickens's mother and siblings eventually joined him. Dickens continued to work at the factory for several months. In the factory the horrific conditions haunted him throughout his life. Dickens never forgot the day when a senior boy in the warehouse took it upon himself to instruct Dickens how to do his work more efficiently.
As a young adult, Dickens worked as a law clerk and later as a journalist. He perceived the darker social conditions of the Industrial Revolution. A collection of semi-fictional sketches entitled Sketches by Boz earned him recognition as a writer. Dickens began to make money from his writing when he published his first novel, The Pickwick Papers in 1836. The Pickwick Papers was hugely popular and Dickens became a literary celebrity at the age of twenty-five. Dickens's themes included wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and the eventual triumph of good over evil. In 1836, Dickens married Catherine Hogarth, but after twenty years of marriage and their ten children, he fell in love with Ellen Ternan, an actress many years his junior. Soon after, Dickens and his wife separated. Dickens remained a prolific writer to the end of his life, and his novels - Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, and Bleak House - continued to earn critical and popular acclaim. He died of a stroke in 1870, at the age of 58.
