Stanley Weintraub is the author or editor of more than fifty books of biography, culture history, and military history, including The London Yankees, Whistler, Victoria, and Uncrowned King: The Life of Prince Albert.

At his death, The Mystery of Edwin Drood remained unfinished. In later years, ill health slowed him down, but he continued his popular dramatic readings from his fiction to an adoring public, which included Queen Victoria. As a novelist and magazine editor, Dickens had a long run of serialized success through Our Mutual Friend (1864–65). He taught himself shorthand and worked as a parliamentary reporter until his writing career took off with the publication of Sketches by Boz (1836) and The Pickwick Papers (1837). A surprise legacy brought release from the nightmare of prison and “slave” factories and afforded Dickens the opportunity of two years’ formal schooling. With an Introduction by Stanley WeintraubĪs a child, Charles Dickens (1812–70) came to know not only hunger and privation, but also the horror of the infamous debtors’ prison and the evils of child labor. After callously discarding everything he once valued for his own selfish pursuits, Pip learns the identity of his patron-a revelation that shatters his very soul. Thrust into London’s high-society circles, Pip grows accustomed to a life of leisure, only to find himself lacking as a suitor competing for Estella’s favor. Pip’s wish is fulfilled when a mysterious benefactor provides him with “great expectations”-the means to be tutored as a gentleman.

His years in service to the Havishams fill his heart with the desire to rise above his station in life. DON'T MISS THE GREAT EXPECTATIONS ORIGINAL SERIES STARRING OLIVIA COLMAN-NOW STREAMING ONLY ON HULU!įrom the agony of Charles Dickens’ disenchantment with the Victorian middle class comes a profound novel of spellbinding mystery.Īn orphan living with his older sister and her kindly husband, Pip is hired by wealthy and embittered Miss Havisham as a companion for her and her beautiful adopted daughter, Estella.

Great expectations audio book