Great Expectations (Om Illustrated Classics) is the thirteenth novel by Charles Dickens and his penultimate completed novel. It depicts the education of an orphan nicknamed Pip (the book is a Bildungsroman, a coming-of-age story). It is Dickens’ second novel, after David Copperfield, to be fully narrated in the first person.
On Christmas Eve, around 1812, Pip, a boy around the age of six, encounters an escaped convict in the village churchyard while visiting his mother’s, father’s and younger brothers’ graves. The convict scares Pip into stealing food for him and a file to grind away his leg shackles.
He warns Pip not to tell anyone and to do as he says or he will cut out Pip’s heart and liver. Pip returns home, where he lives with his older sister Mrs Joe, whose name is later revealed to be Georgiana Maria, and her husband Joe Gargery. His sister is very cruel and beats Pip as well as her husband regularly; however, Joe is much kinder to Pip.
Early the next morning, Pip steals food and drink from the Gargery pantry (including a pie for their Christmas feast) and sneaks out to the graveyard.
