Great Expectations

By: Charles Dickens

Narrated by: Simon Prebble

One of the most revered works in English literature, Great Expectations traces the coming of age of a young orphan, Pip, from a boy of shallow aspirations into a man of maturity. From the chilling opening confrontation with an escaped convict to the grand but eerily disheveled estate of bitter old Miss Havisham, all is not what it seems in Dickens’ dark tale of false illusions and thwarted desire.

Raised by a humble blacksmith, Pip is recruited by the wealthy Miss Havisham to be a companion to her ward, the cold but beautiful Estella. There, Pip learns to despise his rough origins as Estella torments him about his low prospects. When Pip is informed that an unknown benefactor expects to make him his heir, he sets off to London to realize his “great expectations.” But true gentleman stature, he will find, is a matter of character, not fortune.

Public Domain (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Observe how finely the narrative is kept in one key. It begins with a mournful impression—the foggy marshes spreading drearily by the seaward Thames—and throughout recurs this effect of cold and damp and dreariness; in that kind Dickens never did anything so good…No story in the first person was ever better told.” (George Gissing, English novelist)

“I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into

The story of Pip and his great expectations is a classic that I had never read before. Somehow, my class never read it in school. I have read a great many of Dicken’s works and love his writing. I decided to read it because the Literary Classics book club chose it for their May-June read.

The characters in this book are well drawn and very believable. I loved Pip and identified with him as he tries to do what he thinks is right but makes several wrong turns in his life as I think we all do. I felt sorry for Estella and Miss Havisham. She destroyed her own life in her quest for revenge and nearly destroyed Estella’s. My favorite character was Joe the blacksmith, the kindest and truest character ever written by Charles Dickens. I was so happy he came to wonderful end.

I listened to both endings of the book, and I have to say I prefer his original as it finishes everyone’s story but Pip’s and could have been made into a sequel. I understand his friend Edward Bulwer-Lytton asked him to write a happier ending and that is the one most people know. In this version we were treated to both.

Simon Prebble did a wonderful job with his characterizations on the different people in this story.

If you love Dickens than I would highly recommend you read this for the first time or again as a welcoming friend.

Great Expectations is Most Moving of Dickens' Work

I could not stop listening to this book over the two and more days of its 17 hours of length (my money's worth!). Binge-listening to Charles Dickens' novels has been the solution to what actually reading the pages had made difficult for me. First, the culture of language is rich and varied, and the sentences he uses, the moral tone that is based on Love at all levels of relationships, would have me so excited that I was afraid the lack of popularity for such work and all that created it, would grieve me too much. Even finding a good reading light and my best glasses could hamper my ability to hang in there for the long haul. What if the great scope of a story like A Tale of Two Cities could threaten to overpower my understanding.? But that is where the greatest thrill of all comes from these long, well read Audiobook versions of such undeniable masterpieces. My years of life as an English major and writer have taught me to keep reading the more difficult books that I can grasp with any pleasure and thus find better and better levels of skillful work opening up to me. In order to review it more thoroughly I would need the Kindle version, so that I could see the lines to quote accurately, and return to the passages that just send me exclaiming, "Genius!"--the way few novels--and few cultures of readers to support them can do nowadays. There is one long ordeal, more than one, in this book, and there is especially a long analysis given by both author and character that just stuns me with its poetic verities, deeply moving, real and vivid. Dickens makes the weather, the mists, rain, sunlight, take on personality and set moods, move a narrative, or cover a character in muddy boots. And oh my goodness, the use of the ever-central fireplace for refuge and magnetism for all persons of whatever station. Dickens' novels in this form have been worth every tech difficulty I fought through to get them on both my desktop, my Chromebook, and my Echo Dot--which doesn't need a password, but so far, does not have the required volume to make the narrator's hypnotic and varied phrasing sound like other devices can.And Dickens' powers of observation, his knowledge of city-scape and countryside, of the idiosyncrasies of classes from high to low, is full of wisdom and compassion and humor and grief--and above all, image in all its detail.

all time great master work!

if your serious about reading or lituature this book is a must listen! prepare to be transported to a different time and place, Victorian England, a era forever known as Dickensian London! Dickens so encapulates this, he make a time period his own. that even the speech and laugage used in his books are how we think everyone spoke like back then. most Americans think of two dialects as Victorian "stuffy noblalty brittish" and Dickensian. I think the writing style was innovative and unique for the time like Mark Twain in his era. but the humor is lost on modern ears. you start the book thinking it's a coming of age story about Pip. interesting enough. a good relatable protagonist. he spends so much time talking to and about minor charaters that you start to think this book is overrated and dragging a bit. then dickens the master ties loose end and tells 5 or more charaters life stories before you even relize it. that moment of reconition is awe inspring. most authors take eight hours to tell one person's story. Dickens tells many in eighteen and it seems to short when he's done. his charaters are so well devoloped that you feel as deeply for minor characters as you do Pip himself. I believe that everyone reading could possibly have a different favorite character. astounding from a first person narration. this character devolement and interweeving story telling is Dickens' gift to lituature, often mimicked never matched. only downside is the ending. someone must have really hurt Charles Dickens for him to write the original ending, and the rewritten one is only marginally more satisfying.

Outstanding reading

Excellent reading brings fabulous characters and story to life. it is a page turner in it final third. So much so, I can't believe I did not love it when I read in high school.

great read!

enjoyed it immensely on my commutes to and from work! the narrator did an excellent job portraying the different characters.