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Guilt and desire, money and the nature of capitalism are pervasive themes in Dickens' magnificent novel, Great Expectations. "Pip's expectation, before his expectations, is that he will be shown to have already committed a crime," writes David Trotter in his Introduction to this new edition. The orphan Pip's terrifying encounter with an escaped convict on the Kent marshes, and his mysterious summons to the house of Miss Havisham and her cold, beautiful ward Estella form the prelude to his "great expectations". How Pip comes into a fortune, what he does with it, and what he discovers through his secret benefactor are the ingredients of his struggle for moral redemption. Great Expectations was published in three volumes in July 1861. According to Swinburne: "This was the author's last great work, the defects in it are as nearly imperceptible as spots on the sun or shadows on a cloudy day."
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