Miss Havisham presides over Great Expectations like a great, ill-willed fairy queen. She is, by turns, the novel's resident corpse, its ghost, its fairy godmother, and "the Witch of the place"—a fury dressed up in a tattered, yellowed wedding dress. She stands, in the Dickens pantheon, alongside Scrooge, the Artful Dodger, and Uriah Heep as one of his most memorable characters.
Many readers familiar with Charles Dickens' Great Expectations are aware that he originally wrote an ending where Pip and Estella meet years after their painful parting only to solemnly shake hands and go their separate ways again:
It was four years more, before I saw herself.
Great Expectations is a book about a boy who is never allowed to finish a meal in peace, and a woman who stays in wedding-dress shape for her entire life. It's pretty good. Here are all of the upsetting meals that are served in it.
Have you ever felt slightly uncomfortable at a party where you didn't know very many of the other guests? Have you ever told someone "Oh, I'd hate to impose," then stayed for dinner but felt like you'd done something wrong? Put your fears and self-doubts to rest: you are a better and a kinder visitor than Hans Christian Andersen ever was, and Charles Dickens would almost certainly never have immortalized you as a greasy ginger…
Previously in this series: How to tell if you are in a Muriel Spark novel. You have no legs and your name is alliterative. Your father and mother have died at least once in the last year. Your only friend is a prostitute with a terrible wracking cough, and you have never had anything to eat even once. You are a thinly veiled caricature of Hans Christian Andersen. Someone you have always believed…
Hans Christian Andersen, it cannot be denied, was one sorry motherfucker. The first story he ever wrote was about a candle that did not feel appreciated, which is fairly representative of his output over the course of a lifetime. Charles Dickens almost certainly based the character of Uriah Heep on him after an overlong and profoundly uncomfortable stint as his houseguest ("Andersen extended a brief visit to Dickens' home into five weeks, to the…
Previous entries in the series can be found here. Sarah, darling! Got your note oh lovely couldn’t possibly make it over for the christening as I’m simply swamped at the moment (you may recall I was left at the altar and have spent the intervening years reeling from the betrayal) yes I remember Wish terribly I could make it but you know how it is being jilted Well we'll set out a piece of…
Cut From the Classics brings your favorite novels to life as never before. Each week we present a profile of a character who originally appeared in the first draft of a major work of fiction, but was subsequently cut from the final draft. This insight into each author’s process brings a fuller, richer sense of their body of work. Book: Great ExpectationsAuthor: Charles Dickens Publication Date: Ran as a serial from December 1860 -…
