Is the best Dickens novel? Probably! Although I confess to not reading all of his works. I last read this book 9 years ago, and doubtless I’ll re-read it again. I had updated my edition to a nice Oxford World’s Classics with a gothic-looking cover. If you don’t know the story, it’s narrated by Pip, looking back over his life. He is fated to work in his brother-in-law’s forge, when two separate things change his path. He helps out an escaped convict, and is summoned to play at the house of an eccentric lady where he falls in love with a cold-hearted girl. All the connections and coincidences between everything gradually work their way out by the end of the novel.

Several elements of the book make it appealing to me. There are so many memorable characters, such as Miss Havisham, Estella, Mr Jaggers, Wemmick and his Aged P, Mr Pumblechook, Magwitch, Herbert Pocket, and of course Joe Gargery. The writing is marvellous, changing effortlessly between tones, ensuring the book is a lively mixture of comical, tragic, gothic and crime thriller. Pip is a flawed character and is perhaps not very likeable when he is grown up, but at least he recognises his shortcomings. The novel is set a few decades before it was published, so there is also commentary on what has changed, giving it a nostalgic air. What I find interesting is that the ending is ambiguous, when Pip and Estella finally meet again after many years. It’s not a happy ending as such, but there is a hint of hope. The appendix of the book gives the original (unhappy) ending, which is apparently the one he would have chosen, if not persuaded to change it.

First published in 1861. This edition in 2008, edited by Margaret Cardwell, introduction and notes by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst.