Great Expectations (NCE): A Norton Critical Edition: 0 (Norton Critical Editions)

by Charles Dickens (Author), Charles Dickens (Author), Edgar Rosenberg (Author), Charles Dickens (Author), Charles Dickens (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  1999

  $9.81

  The newly established text is based on all extant materials and is accompanied by several textual essays. Backgrounds provides readers with an understanding of Great Expectations's inception and internal chronology. A discussion of the public-reading version of the novel is also included. A wonderfully rich Contexts section collects thirteen pieces, centering on the novel's major themes: the link between author and hero and, relatedly, Victorian notions of gentility, snobbishness, and social mobility; the often brutal training, at home and at school, of children born around 1800; and the central issues of crime and punishment. Criticism gathers twenty-two assessments of Great Expectations, both contemporary and modern, which offer a range of perspectives on Dickens and his novel.