Great Expectations

Seven-year-old Pip is an orphan. He lives with his nasty older sister and works as a blacksmith's apprentice. Pip dreams of a better life, but has no idea how to turn his luck around. Then a mysterious stranger decides to make all of Pip's dreams come true. Pip's lonely life is about to change forever. Will his great expectations be realized? Or will he learn that money and power are worthless without love and friendship?

Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, in Portsmouth, England,where his father was a naval pay clerk. When he was five the family moved to Chatham, near Rochester, another port town. He received some education at a small private school but this was curtailed when his father's fortunes declined. More significant was his childhood reading, which he evoked in a memory of his father's library: 'From that blessed little room, Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey Clinker, Tom Jones, The Vicar of Wakefield, Don Quixote, Gil Blas and Robinson Crusoe came out, a glorious host, to keep me company. They kept alive my fancy, and my hope of something beyond that place and time.' <br><br>When Dickens was ten the family moved to Camden Town, and this proved the beginning of a long, difficult period. (He wrote later of hi