by Charles Dickens

STUDY GUIDE

Charles Dickens’ novel Great Expectations is your set text for GCSE English

Literature.

You will need to read the complete text before you start the course in September. This

guide is designed to help you to enjoy the story. We hope you liked our assembly and are

now ready to get to know the full story.

The novel was published between 1860 and 1861. However, it was not published as an

entire novel in the first instance, instead, Dickens published it in instalments in a magazine.

When you read it, you will notice that quite often Dickens ends a section on a cliff-hanger –

this is probably where a particular instalment finished and was designed to make sure the

reader buys the next instalment. This method of storytelling is just the same as the one

used by modern writers of soap operas – they end an episode on a particularly exciting bit

to make sure we watch next time!

So that you can get into reading the novel, we are going to email you the instalments every

week to your school email, this way you can read it in the same way as it was read by its

first readers in the nineteenth century.

We will use the school email, here are the key dates:

Chapters 1-9 today!

Chapters 9-15 Tuesday 21st April

Chapters 16-21 Friday 1st May

Chapters 22-29 Friday 8th May

Chapters 30-37 Friday 15th May

Chapters 38-42 Friday 22nd May

Chapters 43-52 Friday 12th June

Chapters 53-57 Friday 19th June

Chapters 58-59 Friday 26th June

If you find the reading difficult, here are some tips:

Find yourself a

summary of

the story – try

not to read too

far ahead, you

don’t want to

spoil it, but it

might help!

Watch a film or TV version of the

book – this will help you to

picture the action and the

characters in your head.

Download an audio

version – you will be

able to find these on

Youtube or itunes –

and should be able to

get it for free.

Download it onto your

phone or ipod and

listen at your leisure!

Have a look on Youtube – there are lots of

really great resources to help you to

understand the novel and find out

something about Charles Dickens too!

Discuss the book with

friends and family –

get everyone reading

it and see who can

guess what’s going to

happen next!

Charles Dickens had a really interesting life. He was born in 1812 and although he did start going to school,

he soon had to leave and work in a factory because his father was thrown into a debtors’ prison (a prison

for people who got into debt because they owed other people so much money). As such, he was very

street wise and was very used to going in and out of prisons and meeting all kinds of people.

Despite not having very much formal education at all, he wrote fifteen novels, five short novels (novellas)

and lots and lots of short stories. He also wrote articles and gave lectures and dramatic readings of his

work. He was an international celebrity and really successful.

Dickens is known for his fantastic characters – he depicted all kinds of different characters in wonderful

detail and was fascinated by people from all works of life from the very rich to the very poor. His

characters were often very humorous and they give us an excellent picture of what Victorian society was

like.

Dickens also campaigned for children’s rights and other social reforms. He was very aware of the awful

circumstances many people lived in in both the towns and the countryside and tried to raise awareness of

this with the government.

The leader of Fagin’s gang of kid

criminals, the Artful Dodger is an

entertaining figure, who is “as dirty a

juvenile as one would wish to see” but

with “all the airs and manners of a

man.” All decked out in clothes much

too large for him — not to mention

that huge fantastic hat — “He was,

altogether, as roystering and

swaggering a young gentleman as

ever stood four feet six, or something

less, in the bluchers.”

From the novel, OLIVER TWIST

Ebenezer Scrooge - even at the

beginning of the novel, there’s

something lovably crotchety about

Scrooge, and if your heart isn’t

warmed by watching his grow, well,

we think you might just have some

visitors this Christmas.

From the novel, A CHRISTMAS CAROL

The wrathful, ghostlike Miss

Havisham was abandoned twenty

minutes before her wedding by a

man who was only after her money,

Miss Havisham had all the clocks

stopped at the moment she learned

of her betrayal, and continued living

in her wedding dress, with only one

shoe on. She adopts Estella and

raises her to be cruel and heartless

— at first in a genuine effort to save

the girl from her own fate, and then

as a sort of vicarious revenge.

From the novel, GREAT EXPECTATIONS