Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens

These facts about Dickens will help you to better understand Great Expectations.

1. When he was 12, his father was imprisoned for debt.
2. While his father was in prison, Dickens was sent to work in a boot-blacking factory.
3. Even when his father came out of prison, Dickens' mother made him continue working in the factory – for which he never forgave her.
4. In 1830, he fell in love with Maria Beadnell, but she rejected him.
5. In 1857, Dickens, now 45, fell in love with an actress – the 18-year-old Ellen Ternan – although he never dared tell the public about her.
6. Critics had said his previous novel, A Tale of Two Cities, was too sad.
7. In 1858, Dickens set up his own weekly magazine – All Year Round. In 1860, sales were falling because the novel the magazine was running did not have enough action to keep people interested.

• a. Dickens gave the heroine in Great Expectations the name Estella. In the story Joe, in his 40s, happily marries Biddy, who is 23.
• b. Magwitch – the 'father-figure' in the novel – was a convict, but he was a good man.
• c. Pip is scared Estella might look in the forge, see him at work, and despise him.
• d. Great Expectations is full of melodramatic [melodramatic: Exaggeratedly emotional or dramatic. ] action, love and murder.
• e. Estella cruelly repulses Pip.
• f. Dickens packed Great Expectations full of comic characters and events.
• g. Both Mrs Joe and Miss Havisham – the two 'mother-figures' in the novel – treat Pip badly.