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Jack Maggs

3.64 of 5 stars 3.64 · rating details · 1,750 ratings · 134 reviews

The Booker Prize-winning author of Oscar and Lucinda returns to the nineteenth century in an utterly captivating mystery. The year is 1837 and a stranger is prowling London. He is Jack Maggs, an illegal returnee from the prison island of Australia. He has the demeanor of a savage and the skills of a hardened criminal, and he is risking his life on seeking vengeance and rec...more

Paperback, 357 pages

Published February 22nd 1999 by Vintage (first published 1997)

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Dec 28, 2012 mark monday rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: foggy-nights, into-the-past

a tidy, pleasant entry within the wildly popular Victorian Mystery subgenre. or in this case, the slightly pre-Victorian Mystery subgenre. what is it about this era that holds so much fascination for readers? the most obvious guess is that the fans of these fictions always know that they will be enjoying luxurious expanses of gothic description, built on a foundation of cosseted repression meets wondrous discovery. Jack Maggs does not fail to satisfy on that level - and it is about a tenth the s...more

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Jun 28, 2011 Brian rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A post-colonial reworking of the story of Great Expectations, Jack Maggs is the tale of a transported convict who returns secretly to England to see Henry Phipps, the adopted son whose education he has financed. Unlike Great Expectations however, the convict's story is the central narrative of the book, rather than that of the young gentleman he has secretly fostered. Jack Maggs has known very little kindness in his life and this does not change when he finally meets up with Henry. He returns to...more

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Jan 03, 2013 Bettie added it · review of another edition

Shelves: hardback, paper-read, one-penny-wonder, australia, picaresque, tbr-busting-2013, period-piece, abandoned

Dedication: For Alison

Author's Note: The author willingly admits to having once or twice stretched history to suit his own historical ends.

Front quote ia a lengthy extract from Du magnétisme animal (1820) by Armand Marie Jacques de Chastenet, Marquis de Puységur.

Opening: It was a Saturday night when the man with the red waistcoat arrived in London. It was, to be precise, six of the clock on the fifteenth of April in the year of 1837 that those hooded eyes looked out the window of the Dover coach...more

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Apr 05, 2012 Shawn Lahr rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What a fun book to read! I was thoroughly caught up in the story and in the weirdness of Carey's Dickensian characters. I was especially delighted to dislike Percy Buckle at first, then to like him and think him nobel for saving poor Mercy Larkin--I thought he would be a kind of traditional Dickensian minor hero--then to despise him even more for learning what he does to her, and finally to laugh at him as he encounters his injured front door. And yet, somehow, I feel pity for him as Mercy sees...more

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Jun 28, 2010 Amelia, the pragmatic idealist rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: disappointing

To be fair, this is probably a really good book, and if I ever read it again, I might just like it.

Trouble is, I read this book when I was 12. Ummm....that was a mistake on my part (and my parents, haha), but still--quite disturbing! And pretty sure I won't be reading it again for awhile, just because every time I think of it, I always remember "that scene." :[
Anyway, the moral of the story is--parents, check what your kids are reading! And kids, I don't care how mature you are, some stuff just...more

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Nov 05, 2012 Subiaco Library rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The story goes that Peter Carey read Charles Dickens‘s Great Expectations and felt that the convict character Magwitch, as an example of an early Australian, was treated badly. Carey also thought that perhaps Dickens‘s had known a person like Magwitch and had unfairly exploited his misfortune. An inspired Carey set out to write Jack Maggs. Maggs is a Magwitch type character and there is also Tobias Oates, writer and practitioner of magnetism (hypnotism), who is an analogue of Dickens.

At first I...more

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May 11, 2011 Kenneth Dumas rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Genre: Mystery

Awards: Booker Prize

Star Ratting : 4 Stars

Summary.

Jack Maggs is an escaped convict from the island of australia. He mysteriously appears in London in search of Mr. Phips. He finds the his home but quickly finds out that it is empty. The neighbors quickly inquire to why he is at the house, hoping not to be recognized he tells them that he was a service man for Mr. Phips and was supposed to start work for him. After meeting with them for a while they decide that he can come and work...more Genre: Mystery

Awards: Booker Prize

Star Ratting : 4 Stars

Summary.

Jack Maggs is an escaped convict from the island of australia. He mysteriously appears in London in search of Mr. Phips. He finds the his home but quickly finds out that it is empty. The neighbors quickly inquire to why he is at the house, hoping not to be recognized he tells them that he was a service man for Mr. Phips and was supposed to start work for him. After meeting with them for a while they decide that he can come and work for them as a footman, where the butler shows him how to be a proper footman. As time goes on we see Maggs sneaking out to Mr. Phips house and poking around, as well as writing letters in “invisible ink”.
At a later point Maggs meets Tobias Oates, who is a mesmerist interested in the criminal mind, knowing that there is more to Jack Maggs then meets the eye, he agrees to help him get rid of a painful tick ( twitch in his Face) as well as agrees to set him up with a man who can track down anyone. We see many episodes of Tobias getting information about Maggs past through the hypnosis. Finally Tobias stands well upon his deal and he leads him to the man who can help him find Mr. Phips. As it turns out Mr. Phips is Maggs adopted son for whom he has paid his education. Howver when the two are re-united things do not go as planned, or as Jack has immensely hoped. After realizing this new truth Jack returns to the island from which he came.

Evaluation:

I would recommend this book to a friend, because it is an entertaining new twist to a classic book. The book is packed full of mystery and suspense and keeps you wanting to read more of it. The characters are so abstract it is a refreshing read, not having to see the same old characters and being able to predict how the story will play out. However the only down side to the book was, the rather slow beginning which seemed to drag on. However after making it through the dry start, the rest of the book was a fantastic read.

Ending:

semi-open: We know that things did not work out for Maggs and Mr. Phips, and that the meeting did not go as well as planned. So with that we see Jack return to the prison island from which he escaped. However Carey gives us some leeway in determining and wondering what will become of Maggs and Mr. Phips now.

Suggestions:

Two way this book is a gift to literature would be the abstractness of which it was written and the diction used. The characters, especially Maggs are very abstract. Maggs would not be the typical proper London man but is instead described as this beast of a man and very rugged. Also Carey really pulls us into this imaginary post-colonial world with his use of old world diction, making us feel like we are there ourselves walking the London streets.
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Jan 17, 2011 Barb rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: dick-lit, hf-victorian-1837-1901, london, read-in-2011, favs-of-2011, favorites, on-the-keeper-shelf

I have not read Dickens...*gasps noted*...it's true. So, I cannot make any clever comparisons between the two authors' works or make any comment on Carey's depiction of the obsessive author in this novel being like Dickens, I really don't know enough to say.

What I do know is that I loved this book. The writing is wonderful, the characters are complex and the story is bittersweet, in other words the perfect recipe for a great novel.

It reminded me of 'Fingersmith' by Sarah Waters which is also s...more

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Jun 21, 2009 Tony rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-mainstream

Carey, Peter. JACK MAGGS. (1997; US 1998). ****. Carey, the Booker Prize-winning author of “Oscar and Lucinda,” has managed to write a novel reminiscent of the style of Dickens, set in the early 19th Century. It is the story of Jack Maggs, a criminal transported to Australia for his crimes of thievery, who returns to England, at the risk of being discovered and re-transported, to find his adopted son. Over the years, he has been supporting a young boy who was kind to him on the day before he was...more

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Jan 12, 2009 Faith rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2006

The book I have to read for my English entrance examination... Took a while to get into this book, and get what it was about. After 50 pages I was still totally uninspired... But then it got better. When the background of the characters was explained it was easier to be interested in them and get what the book was about.

What is it about then? The book is set in London of 1839. Jack Maggs is a criminal who has been deported to Australia, but has now returned to the city of his youth to make up w...more

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Apr 13, 2008 Michael Shilling rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: those who enjoy Victorian London as the deepest expression of slow-cured sorrow

Interesting to read a book about Victorians that is completely driven by dialogue, as opposed to the thick soup of expository language that is sometimes beautiful -- such as in Bleak House -- and sometimes awful -- such as in Bleak House. And on that note, Carey doesn't write like Dickens at all; with Carey, you don't the intense highs and lugubrious lows, but you do get to start a book you may actually finish.

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Mar 06, 2013 Emily rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: school-books

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Mar 13, 2013 James Barker rated it 3 of 5 stars

'Great Expectations' is one of my favourite of the classics, and ever since reading 'The true History of the Kelly Gang' I believe Peter Carey is unsurpassable at his best. So, this post-colonial re-telling of Pip's benefactor, the glorious Magwitch, should have been right up my street.

Well, it was and it wasn't.

Carey manages to get into the heart (and bowels) of Victorian London and his descriptive skill is as sharp as ever. The cast of supporting characters are appropriately Dickensian but ha...more

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Jun 04, 2012 Phil rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-century

I really liked this book as I was reading it, and I found I liked it even more after we began discussing it in class today. Carey's style is Dickens-esque, but in such a way that draws our attention to the ackwardness of approaching Dickens as a modern reader--many of the slang terms his audience would have known are foreign to us today, many of the place names meaningless in post-blitz London (even more so for those unfamiliar with either contemporary or historical London), and his narrative pa...more

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Feb 03, 2011 Julie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books-to-read-before-you-die, fiction

I loved this book! This is the story based on Dickens' Great Expectations, but told through the eyes of Jack Maggs (Magwitch in GE). Maggs meets young orphan Henry Phipps (Pip in GE) as a convict on his way to sentencing in Australia. Henry shows him kindness by giving him some food. Maggs remembers this single act of compassion and after serving his prison sentence and making a large fortune in Australia, sends a large monthly allowance which provides Henry with a very idle and rich life. Maggs...more

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Mar 20, 2013 Joyce Huff rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: teachable-texts

Jack Maggs is a richly intertextual work that alludes to - but does not directly retell - Great Expectations. This means that it can work as a stand-alone text. It also includes metatextual reflection on the process of writing, with Maggs and Oates both constructing competing versions of Maggs's life. This raises questions regarding how textual traces of the past survive to become history and who controls the process of history-making, questions which relate to the themes of colonization, gender...more

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Jan 28, 2012 Becky rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Although I guess it strictly falls into the dreaded "Historical Fiction" bracket, Jack Maggs has enough of a story that it doesn't really matter that much. Jack arrives from a ship, and quickly becomes involved with the lives of the household next door to the first house he visited. Instantly, their lives become more complex, as Jack's story is revealed and the unintended become seriously involved in his apparent downfall.

The characters are all pretty straightforward, and it's a bit of a slow s...more

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Jun 26, 2012 Helen Kitson rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

The year is 1837. The place, London. Enter the brooding presence of Jack Maggs, recently arrived from New South Wales. He becomes a footman in order to be close to the house of Henry Phipps, and through his job he comes into contact with Tobias Oates, author and amateur hypnotist, who 'steals' his secrets. The novel features a cast of memorable characters, including Jack's employer, Percy Buckle, a former grocer who suddenly finds himself a wealthy 'gentleman', and Jack's foster mother who prepa...more

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Aug 08, 2009 Leif Schenstead-Harris rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: People who sort of like Dickens but feel weird about him too.

Not bad. Carey has his Victoriana fun while also poking at Dickens and the well-meaning but ultimately selfish middleclass white Victorian male. So I got to play "enjoy the drama" while keeping track of "how we have changed as readers in a society which values x". Or something like that. I'm not sure this would be enjoyed by someone without much knowledge of Great Expectations, Dickens, or Victorian society in general. I found GE assimilated surprisingly well, actually, and how Carey conjured up...more

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Jun 11, 2009 Ruth Peden added it · review of another edition

Peter Carey is a booker prize winner and best selling author. Jack Maggs is a variation on Great |Expectations, in which dicken's tale is told from the viewpoint of an australian convict.
Jack Maggs was raised and deported as a criminal, and has returned from Australia in secret and at great risk. What does he want after all these years, and why is he so interested in the comings and goings at a plush town house in great queen street?

The story was ok however the use of occasional swear language,...more

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Oct 13, 2011 Alec rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed, historical-and-alternative-history, book-related, 19th-century

Splendidly written, fine characters and so on, with a powerful greyness of morality which contributes to a great deal of tension around the ending. All the things one expects from Peter Carey, who's growing on me with every book I read (despite some really dull titles).

The downsides? A rushed ending, too much reliance on Dickensian tropes and jokes (it's basically Great Expectations with Magwitch at the centre instead of the edges), and a vague feeling of, well, just not being anything beyond a...more

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May 25, 2009 Caroline Herbert rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If you have any fondness for Dickens' Great Expectations (and even if you don't), you will love Jack Maggs. Very loosely based on the Dickens classic, this book tells the story from the convict's point of view. Carey starts from that interesting angle and immediately immerses us in a richly realized world. The writing style is somewhat similar to Dickens in that he illuminates the inner life of characters that at first seem minor, but have big roles to play. We move among many different narrativ...more

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Aug 07, 2011 Esther rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

2.5* I can't decide whether the tie to "Great Expectations" helps this book or not. If I could have read it without thinking about how it was different from or similar to the Dickens plot, I think I would have enjoyed it more. Not to say that I didn't enjoy it. Carey is an excellent writer, and this book, of the ones I've read, was the easiest to read by far. My advice to those wanting to read this - think of it as a study of Jack Maggs as a character, rather than reading with the shades of "Gre...more

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Jan 15, 2009 James rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, lincoln-park-group

Have you ever read Great Expectations? The main character Philip Pirrip ,known as Pip, runs into a convict in the opening scene of the novel. This is Abel Magwitch who meets young Pip at a graveyard. Magwitch tricks the seven-year-old boy into believing that he has an accomplice who is a terrible young man who would tear out and eat Pip's heart and liver if Pip did not help them. Pip, terrified, steals a pork pie, brandy and a file from his house and brings them to Magwitch the next morning. The...more Have you ever read Great Expectations? The main character Philip Pirrip ,known as Pip, runs into a convict in the opening scene of the novel. This is Abel Magwitch who meets young Pip at a graveyard. Magwitch tricks the seven-year-old boy into believing that he has an accomplice who is a terrible young man who would tear out and eat Pip's heart and liver if Pip did not help them. Pip, terrified, steals a pork pie, brandy and a file from his house and brings them to Magwitch the next morning. The relationship between Pip and Magwitch is integral to the development of this famous novel.
Undoubtedly inspired by Magwitch's story in Dickens, the modern-day Australian novelist Peter Carey has in Jack Maggs imagined a retelling of Magwitch's tale. Returning to the historical territory--19th-century Australia and England--of his Booker-winning Oscar and Lucinda (1988), he focuses on 1830s London, where an exiled convict has returned to breathe the air of home and to see his beloved son. Pardoned and prosperous in New South Wales, but still under penalty of death if discovered in England, the fearless Jack Maggs steps out of a coach one evening in London to search for Henry Phipps, the boy he had left behind years before. He discovers Phipps's house, but, finding no one home, Maggs seeks employment as a neighbor's footman in order to keep an eye out for his son's return. He writes letters almost incessantly to explain his past to his boy. In the meantime, at a literary dinner hosted by his new employer, Maggs makes the acquaintance of an up-and-coming young writer, Tobias Oates, whose skill as a mesmerist is needed to cure Maggs of a "fit." Oates, penetrating his "patient's" ruses, recognizes a motherlode of material waiting to be tapped, and offers the man a deal: the name of someone who can locate Phipps in exchange for two weeks of demonstrating his ability to engage Maggs's fit-inducing demons through hypnosis. As they meet, however, other forces conspire to alter the scheme of things. The story includes subplots about love affairs involving Phipps and others, but more importantly secrets about Phipps whereabouts are revealed. Carey's complexities of plot also demonstrate gradually that Maggs is honest, fierce, and fabulously deluded. This complicated story benefits from the author's ability to bring the London of Dickens alive and with it characters who echo those first created in the imagination of that literary master's mind.(less)

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Aug 21, 2009 Kristina A rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: neo-victorian, victorian

I will say this for Peter Carey: the man can write an ending. I wrote extensively in my review for Oscar and Lucinda about the stunning achievement of the ending of that book. While the ending for this one is not as disturbing, it is nevertheless very well done. Carey brilliantly brings together the strands of the story -- some of which you didn't even realize were building to anything! -- in order to craft something truly haunting and at the same time satisfying.

Now, this novel was no Oscar and...more I will say this for Peter Carey: the man can write an ending. I wrote extensively in my review for Oscar and Lucinda about the stunning achievement of the ending of that book. While the ending for this one is not as disturbing, it is nevertheless very well done. Carey brilliantly brings together the strands of the story -- some of which you didn't even realize were building to anything! -- in order to craft something truly haunting and at the same time satisfying.

Now, this novel was no Oscar and Lucinda. O&L is so dense and rich and dark, it's like the most decadent chocolate cake you can imagine. (Except this metaphor doesn't really work, since the novel is not sweet at all. Oh well. You know what I mean.) Jack Maggs is more like one scoop of chocolate ice cream. It's good, but you're not going to get totally lost in the complexity of it, and really, you could take another scoop, please. (Did my dessert metaphor work at all for you?)

This is a much quicker read than O&L, and less complex. It has a great hook and keeps the mystery going. I can honestly say that I didn't see a lot of the plot/character reveals coming at all. It builds at a great pace and the interaction between characters is funny and believable in the sense of how self-centered people can be. Carey employs one of the most recognizable of his writing style from O&L to this novel -- namely, his tendency to tell each chapter from a different perspective, always revealing something surprising about that character. As you read, the characters come more into focus, and at times, those you thought you would like reveal some pretty agregious personality traits.

In my opinion, the best character in the novel is Tobias Oates, the "Dickens" character. WOW. Carey does not let Dickens off the hook at ALL, painting him as arrogant, egotistical, self-serving, careless of others, and immature (granted, this is meant to be a very young Dickens). His one saving grace is that he is a brilliant writer, and even for that, he relentlessly plunders the lives of others, exploiting them for his own gain. The struggle between Oates and Jack Maggs, who resists becoming a "character," is fascinating. (My one problem with the Oates character is that occasionally Carey will include short excerpts from his work, and Carey does not write like Dickens at all on the sentence level. That might be ok, except Carey's style isn't really like *any* Victorian writer. I would have liked to see a more dramatic stylistic shift, the way that A.S. Byatt is able to do in her novels that include faux-Victorian writing).

Overall, I would recommend this. If you're looking for the whole Peter Carey experience, I would go with Oscar and Lucinda, but if you're just looking for a good read with dark twists, Jack Maggs will serve you well. (less)

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Sep 26, 2009 Cathay rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I picked up this book for 50 pence from a London public library (in Westminster). The cover was disturbing enough that I set the book back down for a moment or two, but reconsidered since a) I needed a book to read and b)the story was intriguing. I also thought it appropriate since it took place in London, and was based upon a true story.

This was a very interesting story about Mr. Maggs, who had been exiled to Australia due to his crimes. He returned to London and the adventure begins...

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Aug 09, 2010 Paul rated it 5 of 5 stars

Carey is a great storyteller with an impressive command of language and history. I was already convinced of this by his True History of the Kelly Gang. In Jack Maggs he offers a retelling of Great Expectations from the perspectives of the convict/benefactor and those around him, with some significant liberties taken. Carey evokes the fearful social conditions of London in 1837 as thoroughly as Dickens did, and adds to our appreciation of the setting by introducing Dickens himself as a not-terrib...more

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Jun 14, 2010 Ann Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Dickens readers

Recommended to Ann by: Alice!

I love Dickens, and Carey has sampled freely from Dickens' work and his life (the character of Tobias Oates contains parallels to the life of Charles Dickens, for example; and Maggs is clearly based on Magwitch of Great Expectations). But Carey's novel is original nonetheless, and written with a lively, period-flavored but not over-the-top style. The mysteries and coincidences and twists are enough to pull the reader along into the tale, and the flawed characters are compelling.

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Jan 13, 2011 Timothy Moriarty rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I quit Maggs about halfway through. I wanted to like it; it's got a Dickens-like ring to it, though leaner language, much more narrow scope, very slight attempt at humor or warmth....hell, I tried not to compare it to Dickens, but whether I succeeded or not is an open question. I just know I grew bored, then actively irritated. No characters to latch onto, everyone's motives very murky with no light in sight - just not much life to it and very little interesting detail of the period, unless you...more

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Jun 11, 2009 Penny rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Jack Carey is a booker prize winner and best selling author, Jack Maggs is a variation on Great expectations, in which Dicken's tale is told from the viewpoint of the Australian Convict.

Jack Maggs was raised and deported as a criminal, and has returned from Australia in secret and at risk. What does he want all these years, and why is he so interested in the comings and goings at a plush town house in Great Queen Street?

The story was ok however I always find the use of occasional swear language,...more

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About Peter Carey

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Peter Carey was born in Australia in 1943.

He was educated at the local state school until the age of eleven and then became a boarder at Geelong Grammar School. He was a student there between 1954 and 1960 — after Rupert Murdoch had graduated and before Prince Charles arriv...more Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Peter Carey was born in Australia in 1943.

He was educated at the local state school until the age of eleven and then became a boarder at Geelong Grammar School. He was a student there between 1954 and 1960 — after Rupert Murdoch had graduated and before Prince Charles arrived.

In 1961 he studied science for a single unsuccessful year at Monash University. He was then employed by an advertising agency where he began to receive his literary education, meeting Faulkner, Joyce, Kerouac and other writers he had previously been unaware of. He was nineteen.

For the next thirteen years he wrote fiction at night and weekends, working in many advertising agencies in Melbourne, London and Sydney.

After four novels had been written and rejected The Fat Man in History — a short story collection — was published in 1974. This slim book made him an overnight success.

From 1976 Carey worked one week a month for Grey Advertising, then, in 1981 he established a small business where his generous partner required him to work only two afternoons a week. Thus between 1976 and 1990, he was able to pursue literature obsessively. It was during this period that he wrote War Crimes, Bliss, Illywhacker, Oscar and Lucinda. Illywhacker was short listed for the Booker Prize. Oscar and Lucinda won it. Uncomfortable with this success he began work on The Tax Inspector.

In 1990 he moved to New York where he completed The Tax Inspector. He taught at NYU one night a week. Later he would have similar jobs at Princeton, The New School and Barnard College. During these years he wrote The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith, Jack Maggs, and True History of the Kelly Gang for which he won his second Booker Prize.

He collaborated on the screenplay of the film Until the End of the World with Wim Wenders.

In 2003 he joined Hunter College as the Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing. In the years since he has written My Life as a Fake, Theft, His Illegal Self and Parrot and Oliver in America (shortlisted for 2010 Man Booker Prize).
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