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.
| ISBN: | 9780393960693 |
| Publication date: | 10th February 1999 |
| Author: | Charles Dickens, Edgar Rosenberg |
| Publisher: | W.W. Norton and Company an imprint of W. W. Norton & Company |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 748 pages |
| Series: | A Norton Critical Edition |
| Genres: |
Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers Classic fiction: general and literary |