The orphan Pip rises from a blacksmith's forge to gentility through a mysterious benefactor, learning hard lessons about class, love, and gratitude.
Books mentioned in Great Expectations (3)
The London Merchant by George Lillo: “Mr. Wopsle had in his hand the affecting tragedy of George Barnwell, in which he had that moment invested sixpence”
Hamlet by William Shakespeare: “Mr. Wopsle said grace with theatrical declamation,—as it now appears to me, something like a religious cross of the Ghost in Hamlet with Richard the Third,”
Richard III by William Shakespeare: “Mr. Wopsle finished off with a most terrifically snarling passage from Richard the Third”
Books that mention Great Expectations (12)
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt: “The other section of Honors English was reading Great Expectations”
Why Read the Classics by Italo Calvino: “Dickens essay: 'his masterpiece Great Expectations'”
The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton: “I had to read Great Expectations for English, and that kid Pip, he reminded me of us—the way he felt marked lousy because he wasn't a gentleman or anything, and the way that girl kept looking down on him.”
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova: “My father came home early for dinner that night and read aloud to me from Great Expectations.”
Matilda by Roald Dahl: “"Great Expectations," Matilda read, "by Charles Dickens. I'd love to try it."”
How to Read and Why by Harold Bloom: “To understand Pip in all his shadings is to have read Great Expectations well, and is a good start on how to read a novel.”
Gai-Jin by James Clavell: “This was the weekly started by Charles Dickens, and contained the fourteenth installment of Great Expectations—to be published in twenty parts.”
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara: “With Brother Michael, he read Great Expectations...”
The Uses of Literature by Italo Calvino: Cited as the masterpiece in which Dickens handles the reappearance of a convict father
Babel by R. F. Kuang: “CHARLES DICKENS, Great Expectations (chapter epigraph) (epigraph)”
The Accidental by Ali Smith: “from the classics shelf: "Great Expectations. My infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit."”
Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver: “a whiff of Miss Havisham in Dickens's Great Expectations”