About the author
Charles Dickens was the most famous English novelist of the Victorian period and a journalist with an acute eye for institutions. His crowded plots join comedy, sentiment, social anger, and characters whose names and habits remain instantly recognizable.
Dickens fills the book with some of his most durable creations: Miss Havisham, stopped in time and feeding on bitterness; the clerk Wemmick, who keeps a castle in Walworth and a cannon on its roof; and Magwitch, the convict whose return upends Pip's life. The plotting is tight and the moral weather changes slowly but unmistakably.
Where to start
Start with Great Expectations. A blacksmith's boy is lifted into wealth by a secret benefactor — and learns what it costs to become a gentleman.
