A TIMELESS MASTERPIECE FOR THE GENERATIONS This timeless masterpiece, teeming with colorful characters, unexpected plot twists, and Dickens' vivid rendering of the vast tapestry of mid-Victorian England, Great Expectations is considered by many to be Dickens' finest novel. It continues to enthrall new generations of readers Dickens tells the story of humble, orphaned Philip Pirrip (Pip), the book's narrator, who is taken under the wing of the reclusive, embittered, eccentric jilted bride, Miss Havisham-only to blindly give his heart to the dowager's beautiful but haughty ward, Estella. As Pip unravels the truth behind his own 'great expectations' we follow him through this gripping tale of crime and guilt, revenge and reward, and love and loss. His thrilling adventures are set in a suspenseful story of aspirations and moral redemption, and we watch him develop from a boy of shallow dreams into a gentleman, as he discovers the truth about himself. Written in the last decade of Dickens' life, Great Expectations was believed by many critics to be his finest. Praised it for its masterful plot, it rises above the melodrama of some of his earlier works and his psychologically realistic characters, including the kindly blacksmith Joe Gargery, the fearful and fearsome convict Abel Magwitch, the eccentric Miss Haversham and the beautiful Estella, Pip's good-hearted roommate Herbert Pocket and the pompous Pumblechookare are deeper and more interesting that those of his earlier novels. Dickens has created a shrewd insight into real life.