GREAT EXPECTATIONS (OXFORD WORLD S CLASSICS)

Perhaps Dickens''s best-loved work, Great Expectations features memorable characters such as the convict Magwitch, the mysterious Miss Havisham and her proud ward Estella, as Pip unravels the mystery of his benefactor and of his own heart. Widely adapted for film and television, the story attracts readers of all ages. This edition reprints the authoritative text of the Clarendon edition, correcting both original printer''s errors and later textual corruptions, and retains facsimiles of the original title-pages for each of the three volumes of the 1861 edition. Robert Douglas-Fairhurst''s new introduction ranges widely across critical issues raised by the novel: its biographical genesis; the effect of the past on the present, ideas of origin and progress and what makes a ''gentleman'', memory, melodrama, and the book''s critical reception. Four appendices: the original ending to the novel; the different chapter numbering in the serial version; Dickens''s working notes; two pages from the theatrical adaptation of the novel made by, or with the approval of, Dickens. The fullest set of critical notes in any mass-market edition. New to this Edition: Introduction by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst. Expanded notes. New and updated Select Bibliography. New Chronology. New appendix featuring pages from the theatrical adaptation of the novel. Reset text.