Great Expectations

Charles Dickens, 1861

Charles Dickens’s novel told by Pip, an orphan brought up by his sister and her husband, a village blacksmith, who is given a fortune by an unknown benefactor and sent to London to become a gentleman.

Start reading59 chapters, about 187,000 words

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My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.
Chapter IIn context
Ask no questions, and you’ll be told no lies.
Chapter IIIn context
- Truth & Lies
In the little world in which children have their existence whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice.
Chapter VIIIIn context
- Children
- Justice
Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.
Chapter IXIn context
- Change
- Life & Death
Throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise.
Chapter XXVIIIn context
- Character
Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded together
Chapter XXVIIIn context
- Friendship
- Life & Death
“Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There’s no better rule.”
Chapter XLIn context
- Facts
- Truth & Lies
You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then.
Chapter XLIVIn context
- Love
Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil.
Ch. 44In context
- Love
Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but⁠—I hope⁠—into a better shape.
Chapter LIXIn context
- Change
- Experience
I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.
Chapter LIXIn context
- Hope
- Love

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