Recommendations from our site
“What the rest of Great Expectations shows is that having Christmas lasting all the way through your life might not be a good thing. Having a Santa Claus figure who keeps throwing gifts and money at you when they’re not necessarily wanted or deserved might be a handicap.” Read more...
The best books on Dickens and Christmas
Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Literary Scholar
“It is one of the most perfect novels ever written.It’s got a wonderful plot. It’s about good and bad money, you don’t know who Pip’s benefactor is, you’re wrong-footed—as he is—all the time. It’s about terrible damage. It’s got this fantastic suspense about what happens to Magwitch. It’s sad, but also it’s got wonderful humour in it and wonderful characters. It’s got Wemmick, one of the first commuters. It’s just brilliant.” Read more...
The Best Charles Dickens Books
Jenny Hartley, Biographer
“It’s a prime example of a good analysis, because Pip comes to see where he has been blind, where his moral values have gone wonky” Read more...
Salley Vickers, Novelist
“It is a novel not just about survival of the fittest. It is also a novel about the ways in which you make your way in the world, and how it is that you can reach a place in life which is different from where you started.” Read more...
John Sutherland, Literary Scholar
Think of Great Expectations, a novel which most people think of as quite homey and not particularly sexual. Molly, Jaggers’ servant, is Estella’s mother; she had an illegitimate relationship with Magwitch. So a central figure in the novel is a bastard. You also have the Havisham plot, with the absconding husband (or fiancé) Compeyson. You can see lots of evidence of sexual life in the plotting of Victorian novels.
The best books on Sex in Victorian Literature recommended by Claire Jarvis
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