Charles Dickens 
Great Expectations 

With an essay by George Bernard Shaw."What do you think that is?’ she asked me, again pointing with her stick; ‘that, where those cobwebs are?""I can’t guess what it is, ma’am.""It’s a great cake. A bride-cake. Mine!"Great Expectations, Dickens’s funny, frightening and tender portrayal of the orphan Pip’s journey of self-discovery, is one of his best-loved works. Showing how a young man’s life is transformed by a mysterious series of events – an encounter with an escaped prisoner; a visit to a black-hearted old woman and a beautiful girl; a fortune from a secret donor – Dickens’s late novel is a masterpiece of psychological and moral truth, and Pip among his greatest creations.The Penguin English Library – 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.