Great Expectations

Charles Dickens · Victorian Mystery · 59 chapters · 15h 56m · 12 voices

Young Pip — a blacksmith's apprentice — receives a mysterious fortune from an unknown benefactor and becomes a London gentleman. His journey from honest poverty to hollow ambition to hard-won wisdom, guided by the eccentric Miss Havisham and the cold beauty Estella.

Fifty-nine chapters and sixteen hours, the longest book in the catalogue, and the one with the widest range of speech. Dickens wrote by ear: Joe Gargery's hesitations, Jaggers's cross-examining, Wemmick switching register between Little Britain and Walworth, Magwitch's file-and-gruel rasp. Pip narrates as an older man looking back at himself, which gives the recording two registers for the same character — the boy in the scene and the man judging him. Cast separately, the class distance that the whole novel is about becomes something you hear rather than something you are told.

The voices that carry it

Joe Gargery is the heart of the book and the easiest to condescend to; he is cast warm and slow rather than comic. Wemmick is the technical showpiece, since the same voice has to be two entirely different men depending on which side of the drawbridge he is on.

Chapter one plays without an account. Start listening to Great Expectations.

Voice cast

11 characters plus the narrator, each with their own voice. All the voices of Great Expectations.

Pip — Philip Pirrip — Pip — an orphan blacksmith's boy whose unexpected inheritance transforms him into a London gentleman. His journey from humility to snobbery to hard-earned wisdom.
Joe Gargery — Pip's gentle blacksmith brother-in-law — the emotional heart of the novel. Unlettered, loyal, entirely without guile. His love for Pip is unconditional and undeserved.
Herbert Pocket — Pip's cheerful, financially optimistic best friend in London — eternally projecting prosperity he doesn't have, endlessly supportive, genuinely happy.
Estella — Miss Havisham's beautiful ward, raised to break men's hearts. Cold, precise, honest about her inability to love, and eventually broken by her own training.
Miss Havisham — The eccentric recluse of Satis House who stopped all the clocks at the moment she was jilted on her wedding day, and has worn her rotting dress ever since. Bitter, theatrical, ultimately regretful.
Mr. Jaggers — The formidable London lawyer who manages Pip's great expectations. Intimidating, precise, washing his hands constantly, who neither confirms nor denies anything.
Wemmick — Jaggers's clerk — a man of two faces: the professional automaton at the office and the devoted son in his eccentric home-fortress in Walworth.
Abel Magwitch — The escaped convict Pip helped as a boy — who turns out to have been Pip's anonymous benefactor all along. Gruff, fierce, deeply grateful, ultimately tragic.
Biddy — Pip's childhood friend — sensible, quietly loving, and the person who ends up with the happiness Pip discarded in his pursuit of greatness.
Mrs. Joe — Pip's harsh older sister who raised him 'by hand' — abrasive, dominant, deeply resentful of her domestic life. Struck down mid-novel.

Chapters

Chapter I 9m
Chapter II 18m
Chapter III 9m
Chapter IV 19m
Chapter V 22m
Chapter VI 3m
Chapter VII 22m
Chapter VIII 22m
Chapter IX 14m
Chapter X 14m
Chapter XI 28m
Chapter XII 9m
Chapter XIII 16m
Chapter XIV 4m
Chapter XV 22m
Chapter XVI 10m
Chapter XVII 16m
Chapter XVIII 28m
Chapter XIX 30m
Chapter XX 17m
Chapter XXI 9m
Chapter XXII 26m
Chapter XXIII 18m
Chapter XXIV 11m
Chapter XXV 15m
Chapter XXVI 15m
Chapter XXVII 17m
Chapter XXVIII 13m
Chapter XXIX 27m
Chapter XXX 18m
Chapter XXXI 13m
Chapter XXXII 12m
Chapter XXXIII 15m
Chapter XXXIV 11m
Chapter XXXV 15m
Chapter XXXVI 13m
Chapter XXXVII 14m
Chapter XXXVIII 27m
Chapter XXXIX 24m
Chapter XL 27m
Chapter XLI 11m
Chapter XLII 15m
Chapter XLIII 10m
Chapter XLIV 16m
Chapter XLV 14m
Chapter XLVI 15m
Chapter XLVII 13m
Chapter XLVIII 14m
Chapter XLIX 18m
Chapter L 8m
Chapter LI 15m
Chapter LII 10m
Chapter LIII 26m
Chapter LIV 28m
Chapter LV 15m
Chapter LVI 11m
Chapter LVII 25m
Chapter LVIII 16m
Chapter LIX 8m

About this recording

How long is Great Expectations as an audiobook?

About sixteen hours over fifty-nine chapters. It is the longest recording in the catalogue, and the chapters are short enough to make it easy to listen in pieces.

Is this the original ending?

This follows the standard published text, which uses the revised ending Dickens substituted before the novel appeared in volume form.