{"product_id":"great-expectations-isbn-9780141330136","title":"Great Expectations","description":"As a small boy at Joe Gargery's forge, Pip meets two people who will affect his whole life - an escaped convict he is forced to help, and the eccentric Miss Haversham, whose beautiful, cold-hearted ward Estella young Pip adores. But when a secret benefactor pays for him to go to London to become a gentleman, Pip never dreams he will meet the dreadful Magwitch again, nor just how wrong his expectations are.\"No story in the first person was ever better told.\"Charles Dickens (1812-70) is one of the most recognized celebrities of English literature. His imagination, wit, mastery of the language and huge creative output single him out as one of the few people who genuinely deserve to be called genius. He had a poverty-stricken childhood and was determined to improve himself. By his early twenties he found a job as a parliamentary reporter and in his spare time wrote sketches of London life for newspapers and magazines. The publication of Pickwick Papers (1836) brought him the fame and fortune he craved. He wrote many other famous books including Oliver Twist and A Tale of Two Cities.Chapter I.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy father's family name being Pirrip, and my christian name Philip, my\u003cbr\u003einfant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than\u003cbr\u003ePip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI give Pirrip as my father's family name, on the authority of his tombstone\u003cbr\u003eand my sister – Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As I never saw\u003cbr\u003emy father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for\u003cbr\u003etheir days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies\u003cbr\u003eregarding what they were like, were unreasonably derived from their\u003cbr\u003etombstones. The shape of the letters on my father's, gave me an odd idea\u003cbr\u003ethat he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the\u003cbr\u003echaracter and turn of the inscription, \"Also Georgiana Wife of the Above,\"\u003cbr\u003eI drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly. To\u003cbr\u003efive little stone lozenges, each about a foot and a half long, which were\u003cbr\u003earranged in a neat row beside their grave, and were sacred to the memory of\u003cbr\u003efive little brothers of mine – who gave up trying to get a living exceedingly\u003cbr\u003eearly in that universal struggle – I am indebted for a belief I religiously\u003cbr\u003eentertained that they had all been born on their backs with their hands in\u003cbr\u003etheir trousers-pockets, and had never taken them out in this state of\u003cbr\u003eexistence.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOurs was the marsh country, down by the river, within as the river wound,\u003cbr\u003etwenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad impression of the\u003cbr\u003eidentity of things, seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw\u003cbr\u003eafternoon towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain, that\u003cbr\u003ethis bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard; and that Philip\u003cbr\u003ePirrip, late of this parish, and also Georgiana wife of the above, were\u003cbr\u003edead and buried; and that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and\u003cbr\u003eRoger, infant children of the aforesaid, were also dead and buried; and\u003cbr\u003ethat the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dykes\u003cbr\u003eand mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes;\u003cbr\u003eand that the low leaden line beyond was the river; and that the distant\u003cbr\u003esavage lair from which the wind was rushing, was the sea; and that the\u003cbr\u003esmall bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry, was\u003cbr\u003ePip.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Hold your noise!\" cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among\u003cbr\u003ethe graves at the side of the church porch. \"Keep still, you little devil,\u003cbr\u003eor I'll cut your throat!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man with\u003cbr\u003eno hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A\u003cbr\u003eman who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by\u003cbr\u003estones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who\u003cbr\u003elimped, and shivered, and glared and growled; and whose teeth chattered in\u003cbr\u003ehis head as he seized me by the chin.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Oh! Don't cut my throat, sir,\" I pleaded in terror. \"Pray don't do it,\u003cbr\u003esir.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Tell us your name!\" said the man. \"Quick!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Pip, sir.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Once more,\" said the man, staring at me. \"Give it mouth!\"","brand":"Puffin Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303181865189,"sku":"NP9780141330136","price":10.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780141330136.jpg?v=1767728458","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/great-expectations-isbn-9780141330136","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}