<P> The novel is set in Kent and London in the early to mid-19th century and contains some of Dickens's most memorable scenes, including the opening in a graveyard, where the young Pip is accosted by the escaped convict, Abel Magwitch . Great Expectations is full of extreme imagery--poverty, prison ships and chains, and fights to the death--and has a colourful cast of characters who have entered popular culture . These include the eccentric Miss Havisham, the beautiful but cold Estella, and Joe, the unsophisticated and kind blacksmith . Dickens's themes include wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and the eventual triumph of good over evil . Great Expectations, which is popular both with readers and literary critics, has been translated into many languages and adapted numerous times into various media . </P> <P> Upon its release, the novel received near universal acclaim . Although Dickens's contemporary Thomas Carlyle referred to it disparagingly as that "Pip nonsense," he nevertheless reacted to each fresh instalment with "roars of laughter ." Later, George Bernard Shaw praised the novel, as "All of one piece and consistently truthful ." During the serial publication, Dickens was pleased with public response to Great Expectations and its sales; when the plot first formed in his mind, he called it "a very fine, new and grotesque idea ." </P> <P> On Christmas Eve, around 1812, Pip, an orphan who is about seven years old, encounters an escaped convict in the village churchyard, while visiting the graves of his parents and siblings . Pip now lives with his abusive elder sister and her kind husband Joe Gargery, a blacksmith . The convict scares Pip into stealing food and a file . Early on Christmas morning Pip returns with the file, a pie and brandy . During Christmas dinner, at the moment Pip's theft is about to be discovered, soldiers arrive and ask Joe to repair some shackles . Joe and Pip accompany them as they recapture the convict who is fighting with another escaped convict . The first convict confesses to stealing food from the smithy . </P> <P> A year or two later, Miss Havisham, a wealthy spinster who still wears her old wedding dress and lives as a recluse in the dilapidated Satis House, asks Mr Pumblechook to find a boy to visit . Pip visits Miss Havisham and falls in love with her adopted daughter Estella . Pip visits Miss Havisham regularly, until he is old enough to learn a trade . </P>

Who did pip live with in great expectations