Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (1861)

I did not like it as much as David Copperfield however it is very good. As relevant today as when written.

As with all Dickens it has the Good, the Bad, the Ugly, the Evil, the Kind, the Smart, the Dumb, the Intelligent, and the Common folks depicted in very insightful ways. Oh, and redemption too.

I would say that the 1st half sort of plods along but it takes all that to set the stage for the second half.
The 2nd half becomes a whirl wind of action, intrigue and adventure.

Got tired of waiting to find a better one at the estate sales so I picked this one up.

No date, maybe early 1900's

Pretty good condition.

Don't know how they served themselves or the readers by leaving out the details but this is all you get when it comes in a set.

The only illustration was a very poor choice but, they often are.

Amazing contrasts between city and country characters.
The city characters all have a forced duplicity in that they are play acting when at work and more real to their nature when at home. Wemmick is so likable at home and I wish he were a friend of mine; able to switch from business to personal and keep the two in their own compartments. I guess I have known many who can and cannot make this transition; if required it is the better way to go, duplicity that is.

 One of the searing quotes:
"All other swindlers on earth are nothing to the self-swindlers" never heard it put so sharply.

Pip to me becomes a good "every-man" in-spite of his (and others for him) Great Expectations. Oh to recall my own Great Expectations and to now confront the reality of a life where much good has been achieved, many missteps taken and my Great Expectations won't be achieved.

The young many about town, having fun spending all his money, getting in debt and finding out he is a fraud. So as soon as he discovers his benefactor's real identity we as readers are forced to decide what we would do; keep riding the gravy train comes to mind. Pip has a young man's idealism and decides otherwise.

Although he never "goes back to the farm" he admits several times he may have been happier staying there.

Magwitch is one character that is a product of his upbringing (this of course could never happen today) but strives to good for his own legacy. He however is chained to his inescapable past doings, as are we all.

The concept of a benefactor is the only device that on the surface seems rare however social privilege has in fact a similar effect. And too the benefits of making and retaining friends through out the course of life is a critical take away and should be heeded well by the young reader. Loosing all your formative years friends is a mistake. FYI by formative years I mean your late teens and twenties, friends after that (in the words of my stepfather) are most likely just acquaintances. 

Several times we wish Handel would stop over thinking things and consider the better option or just take it all in instead of coming to things with a preconceived notion.

The book has many lessons for those of you living a dream. I think the hardest lesson to see is how each life event is going to force a future upon you, and how to shape that event outcome for the best; the forest for the trees issue. The old adage: life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it, could be calculated for each of the characters in the novel, it would be fun to place each of them on an X Y chart.