Great Expectations

by Jacqueline Morley (Adaptor)

As a young orphan, Pip encounters an escaped criminal while living with his cruel sister. He is then sent to spend time with the eccentric Miss Havisham and her cold, beautiful ward, Estella, who enchants Pip. As a young man, Pip is given money by a mysterious benefactor, who turns out to be both the convict and Estella's father. With the hopes of winning Estella's love and becoming a gentleman in London, Pip is tasked with many "great expectations."

Genres: Graphic Novels, Classics

48 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2011

About the author

Jacqueline Morley studied English at Oxford University and has taught English and History. She is the author of numerous books, including award-winning historical nonfiction titles for children. Her books have won several TES Senior Information book awards.

Reviews

[StrictlySequential · Rating 4 out of 5]

Penko's art is perfect for Dickens.

[Faith · Rating 1 out of 5]

1/5 stars

rtc

[Carolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is on the "Book Club" Puzzle but I'm not willing to invest days and hours on such a long book. A bit of cheating doing the graphic novel, but I'll get the basic story line. Modern day Cliff Notes. LOL. I would have hated the original - I could barely get through 40 pages of comics

[Loulya]

This graphic novel adapted from the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, tells the story of an orphan, Pip, who falls in love with a wealthy lady, Estella, and slowly journeys himself into a gentleman in order to ask her hand in marriage. Pip grows up living with his sister and her husband, Joe, with whom he has a very close relationship to. When visiting Miss Havisham, a wealthy lady his uncle knows, he is introduced to Estella and instantly falls in love with her. The only problem is, while Pip is a poor young orphan, Estella is a beautiful young girl, who demonstrates no interest in Pip. From that day onwards, Pip begins his journey to prove himself a gentleman to Estella, so that she falls for him and agrees to marry him. Pip's wishes of becoming a gentleman take a very long time. Pip's life is changed when he meets the young gentleman Herbert Pocket, who's father Matthew Pocket, teaches Pip to be a gentleman. However, as the we scan through more pages of the book, we come across unbelievable plot twists which reveal the secret behind Estella's unkindness and the man Pip met as a child.

This novel is an extremely well written novel because the plot twist to it is completely unexpected. Reading this novel as a graphic novel makes it all the more interesting because it allows us to actually visualise everything going on... The graphic novel method brings life to the words in the novel by Charles Dickens. This story is a great story and is so much more than what it seems. At first, this seems like a typical love story where the guy tries to get the girl, but as the twists in this novel are uncovered, we come to realise that that is not the case. The character development in the novel is so strong because by the end of the book, you realise how important every character was, even if you didn't think so at the beginning.

I would recommend this graphic novel to teenagers and adults. The novel would be a great book for adults and I recommend the original version to older audiences as it is harder to read and is much longer. However, for young teenagers who do not enjoy reading long and tough books, I definitely recommend the adapted version, this graphic novel, as it is much easier to understand yet still remains as interesting as the book. I really enjoyed this book, I read the original novel and I loved comparing both books to each other, even though they are very much alike.