Dickens, C: Hard Times: Collins Classics

Charles Dickens was born in 1812 and grew up in poverty. This experience influenced 'Oliver Twist',' the second of his fourteen major novels, which first appeared in 1837. When he died in 1870 he was buried in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey as an indication of his huge popularity as a novelist, which endures to this day.

Considered by many to be Dickens' finest novel, Great Expectations traces the growth of the book's narrator, Philip Pirrip (Pip), from a boy of shallow dreams to a man with depth of character. From its famous dramatic opening on the bleak Kentish marshes, the story abounds with some of Dickens' most memorable characters. Among them are the kindly blacksmith Joe Gargery, the mysterious convict Abel Magwitch, the eccentric Miss Havisham and her beautiful ward Estella, Pip's good-hearted room-mate Herbert Pocket and the pompous Pumblechook.

As Pip unravels the truth behind his own 'great expectations' in his quest to become a gentleman, the mysteries of the past and the convolutions of fate through a series of thrilling adventures serve to steer him towards maturity and his most important discovery of all - the truth about himself.