Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
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Great Expectations

Author: Charles Dickens

Narrator: Hugh Laurie

Abridged: 2 hr 49 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 06/16/2005


Synopsis

The orphan Pip’s terrifying encounter with an escaped convict on the Kent marshes, and his mysterious summons to the house of Miss Havisham and her cold, beautiful ward Estella, form the prelude to his “great expectations.” How Pip comes into a fortune, what he does with it, and what he discovers through his secret benefactor are the ingredients of his struggle for moral redemption.
 

About The Author

Charles Dickens was born in a little house in Landport, Portsea, England, on February 7, 1812. The second of eight children, he grew up in a family frequently beset by financial insecurity. When the family fortunes improved, Charles went back to school, after which he became an office boy, a freelance reporter, and finally an author. With Pickwick Papers (1836–37) he achieved immediate fame. In a few years he was easily the most popular and respected writer of his time. It has been estimated that one out of every ten persons in Victorian England was a Dickens reader. Oliver Twist (1837), Nicholas Nickleby (1838–39), and The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41) were huge successes. Martin Chuzzlewit (1843–44) was less so, but Dickens followed it with his unforgettable, A Christmas Carol (1843), Bleak House (1852–53), Hard Times (1854), and Little Dorrit (1855–57), which reveal his deepening concern for the injustices of British society. A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860–61), and Our Mutual Friend (1864–65) complete his major works.Hugh Laurie appeared in the TV comedies Blackadder and A Bit of Fry and Laurie and, also with Stephen Fry, four series of Jeeves and Wooster. He starred in the popular TV medical drama, House.


Reviews

Goodreads review by emma on June 29, 2022

welcome to...GREAT EXPECTA(JUNE)S. that was so bad. i need to write fast - i'm expecting a SWAT team to enter my cute apartment via my lovely floor-to-ceiling windows and put me out of my misery at any moment. you can't murder the art of punning like that and expect to escape with your life. in the m......more

Goodreads review by Michael on July 14, 2008

My students (and some of my friends) can't ever figure out why I love this novel so much. I explain how the characters are thoroughly original and yet timeless, how the symbolism is rich and tasty, and how the narrative itself is juicy and chock-full of complexity, but they just shake their heads at......more

Goodreads review by Sean Barrs on December 26, 2017

"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." That is such a quote. If there was ever a novel that shows us the dangers of false perceptions......more

Goodreads review by Mario the lone bookwolf on January 31, 2023

Not as good as Christmas Carol and Oliver Twist, a tiny bit better than A tale of two cities, but to its core just Oliver Twist 2.0 with a first person narrator, and a perfect reason for why nobody likes serialized short stories condensed to weak novels. I mentioned some of the weaknesses of Dickens......more


Quotes

"No story in the first person was ever better told."