Great expectations

ISBN-13: 9781539775409 / Angielski / Miękka / 2016 / 604 str.

Charles Dickens; G-Ph Ballin

Opis

Great Expectations is the thirteenth novel by Charles Dickens and his penultimate completed novel; a bildungsroman which depicts the personal growth and personal development of an orphan nicknamed Pip. It is Dickens's second novel, after David Copperfield, to be fully narrated in the first person. The novel was first published as a serial in Dickens's weekly periodical All the Year Round, from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. In October 1861, Chapman and Hall published the novel in three volumes. The novel is set in Kent and London in the early to mid-19th century and contains some of Dickens' most memorable scenes, including the opening in a graveyard, where the young Pip is accosted by the escaped convict, Abel Magwitch. Great Expectations is full of extreme imagery - poverty; prison ships and chains, and fights to the death - and has a colourful cast of characters who have entered popular culture. These include the eccentric Miss Havisham, the beautiful but cold Estella, and Joe, the unsophisticated and kind blacksmith. Dickens's themes include wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and the eventual triumph of good over evil. Great Expectations (popular both with readers and literary critics) has been translated into many languages and adapted numerous times into various media. Upon its release, the novel received near universal acclaim, although Thomas Carlyle spoke disparagingly of "all that Pip's nonsense." Later, George Bernard Shaw praised the novel, as "All of one piece and consistently truthfull." During the serial publication, Dickens was pleased with public response to Great Expectations and its sales; when the plot first formed in his mind, he called it "a very fine, new and grotesque idea." Charles John Huffam Dickens, ne a Landport, pres de Portsmouth, dans le Hampshire, le 7 fevrier 1812 et mort a Gad's Hill Place, Higham, Kent, le 9 juin 1870 (a 58ans), est considere comme le plus grand romancier de l'epoque victorienne. Des ses premiers ecrits, il est devenu immensement celebre, sa popularite ne cessant de croitre au fil de ses publications. L'experience marquante de son enfance, que certains considerent comme la clef de son genie, a ete, peu avant l'incarceration de son pere pour dettes a la Marshalsea, son embauche a douze ans chez Warren ou il a colle des etiquettes sur des pots de cirage pendant plus d'une annee. Bien qu'il soit retourne presque trois ans a l'ecole, son education est restee sommaire et sa grande culture est essentiellement due a ses efforts personnels. Il a fonde et publie plusieurs hebdomadaires, compose quinze romans majeurs, cinq livres de moindre envergure (novellas en anglais), des centaines de nouvelles et d'articles portant sur des sujets litteraires ou de societe. Sa passion pour le theatre l'a pousse a ecrire et mettre en scene des pieces, jouer la comedie et faire des lectures publiques de ses uvres qui, lors de tournees souvent harassantes, sont vite devenues extremement populaires en Grande-Bretagne et aux Etats-Unis. Charles Dickens a ete un infatigable defenseur du droit des enfants, de l'education pour tous, de la condition feminine et de nombreuses autres causes, dont celle des prostituees."