<Tr> <Th> Media type </Th> <Td> Print </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Pages </Th> <Td> 544 (first edition 1861) </Td> </Tr> <P> Great Expectations is the thirteenth novel by Charles Dickens and his penultimate completed novel: a bildungsroman that depicts the personal growth and personal development of an orphan nicknamed Pip . It is Dickens's second novel, after David Copperfield, to be fully narrated in the first person . The novel was first published as a serial in Dickens's weekly periodical All the Year Round, from 1 December 1860 to August 1861 . In October 1861, Chapman and Hall published the novel in three volumes . </P> <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>

Short summary of the great expectations by charles dickens