Pip doesn't expect much from life. His sister makes it clear that her orphaned little brother is nothing but a burden on her. But suddenly things begin to change. Pip's narrow existence is blown apart when he finds an escaped criminal, is summoned to visit a mysterious old woman and meets the icy beauty Estella. Most astoundingly of all, an anonymous person gives him money to begin a new life in London. Are these events as random as they seem? Or does Pip's fate hang on a series of coincidences he could never have expected? This edition contains - Introduction; A Dickens chronology; Further reading; A note on the text; Map (Kent in the Earth nineteenth century); 'Great Expectations' (volumes I, II and III); Notes; Appendix A (The ending as originally conceived); Appendix B (Dicken's working notes); Appendix C (Running heads added in 1867-8).