The story of Little Nell, the beautiful child thrown into a shadowy, terrifying world, seems to belong less to the history of the Victorian novel than to folklore, fairy tale, or myth. The sorrows of Nell and her grandfather are offset by Dickens's creation of a dazzling contemporary world inhabited by some of his most brilliantly drawn characters-the eloquent ne'er-do-well Dick Swiveller; the hungry maid known as the "Marchioness"; the mannish lawyer...

"Set in Victorian London, Great Expectations is the cautionary tale of a young man raised high above his station by a mysterious benefactor. Its remarkable characters and compelling story about wealth and poverty, crime and social anxiety, and the bitterness of unrequited love are as relevant today as when the novel was first serialized in 1860-1861. Charles Dickens's tale begins with young, orphaned Philip Pirrip, "Pip," running afoul of an escaped...