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Great Expectations

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Great Expectations

By: Charles Dickens
Narrated by: Simon Vance
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About this listen

Audie Award, Classic, 2009

Considered by many to be Charles Dickens's finest novel, Great Expectations traces the growth of the book's narrator, the orphan Philip Pirrip (Pip), from a boy of shallow dreams to a man with depth of character.

From its famous dramatic opening on the bleak Kentish marshes, the story abounds with some of Dickens's most memorable characters. Among them are the kindly blacksmith Joe Gargery, the mysterious convict Abel Magwitch, the eccentric Miss Havisham and her beautiful ward Estella, Pip's good-hearted roommate Herbert Pocket, and the pompous Pumblechook.

As Pip unravels the truth behind his own "great expectations" in his quest to become a gentleman, the mysteries of the past and the convolutions of fate through a series of thrilling adventures serve to steer him toward maturity and his most important discovery of all - the truth about himself.

Click here to see all the titles in our Charles Dickens collection.Public Domain (P)2008 Tantor Classics Coming of Age Genre Fiction Gothic Horror Literary Fiction Scary Fiction Heartfelt

Critic reviews

"The most perfectly constructed and perfectly written of all Dickens's works." (Edgar H. Johnson, Dickens' biographer)
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You know you are always safe with Simon Vance narrating something. There is such a range of characters needed in Great Expectations. He doesn't overdo Magwitch, and he's excellent with female characters, never making them sound like a man being camp.

Hurrah for Simon Vance

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Miss Haversham is my favourite character, she lives in a world that is both enticing and repulsing - both to Pip and the reader. She leads a strange existence. We buy into her world as we travel the story with Pip. We also buy into his great expectations as he does. An unusual story and a very theatrical novel in one. Simon Vance is perfect as the narrator.

A very theatrical novel

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