Great Expectations

Exam board: AQA, Edexcel, OCR
Level & Subject: GCSE English Literature
Next exam: June 2026
This edition of Great Expectations is perfect for GCSE-level students: it comes complete with the novel, plus an introduction providing context, and a glossary explaining key terms.
'Hold your noise!' cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among the graves at the side of the church porch. 'Keep still, you little devil, or I'll cut your throat!'
So begins Charles Dickens's 1861 bildungsroman, the story of the orphan Pip who is catapulted from the desolate Kent marshes of his childhood to become a young gentleman in London.
Who is Pip's mysterious benefactor? And what role will the troubling figures of escaped convict Magwitch, decaying bride Miss Havisham and the beautiful but aloof Estella play in his prospects?
Told through the first-person voice of the older Pip, this story of great expectations suggests gains always come at a price. Dickens depicts both the horrors of the early nineteenth-century penal system and the rapid rise and fall of fortunes that Victorian society permitted.

Charles Dickens and Collins GCSE, Introduction and notes by Maria Cairney