library binding, 442 pages

English language

Published Nov. 19, 1879 by Houghton, Osgood and Company.

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4 stars (9 reviews)

An unknown benefactor supplies an orphaned blacksmith's apprentice with the means to be educated in London as a gentleman of "great expectations."

138 editions

I may need to read more

4 stars

I enjoyed this novel more than I expected. Dickens writes very impressively, which maybe should not be a surprise but I imagined something more formal and tedious. He writes with a rhythm and some amazing turns of phrases. I am unfamiliar with the speech of the time to understand how much of what seems novel to me is merely the idiom of the time.