Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth, England, in 1812, and spent his early years in
Chatham, a town in the coastal county of Kent. When he was about 12 years old, his
father was arrested for debt and committed to London's Marshalsea Prison,
whereupon Charles was sent, by the agency of a relative, to earn his own keep at
Warren's Blacking (a manufacturer of shoe-polish). Forced, alone, to support himself on
the meager wages of a child laborer, Dickens was plunged into a period of misery that
continued to haunt him for the rest of his life. Partly as a result of his early hardships, his
novels show a remarkably developed social conscience. They are frequently
concerned with the condition of the poor, and often show a special sympathy for
children.
As he grew older, Dickens worked as an office boy, and, by learning shorthand,
entered journalism as a parliamentary reporter. Beginning to contribute articles and
sketches, in addition to his reports on the House of Commons, Dickens soon became
known as the popular journalist "Boz." Boz' first long work of fiction -- The Pickwick
Papers -- was serialized in 1836-7. After the success of Pickwick, Dickens continued to
produce serialized novels, and advanced to the editorship of various periodicals.
Great Expectations was first serialized in All the Year Round -- a journal conducted by
Dickens himself -- from December 1860 to August 1861.
Great Expectations is one of Dickens' later novels, and appeared in the years of his
confirmed success as a writer. Having purchased a house at Gad's Hill, Chatham -- the
town in Kent where he had spent the earlier, happier part of his childhood -- Dickens
wrote much of Great Expectations overlooking at once the scenes of his youth and
those of the novel he was composing: Pip's market town, in Great Expectations, is
Rochester -- Chatham's sister-city -- and Miss Havisham's home is based on a house
there. Great Expectations was immensely popular as a weekly serial, and, when
published in book form, went through five editions before the year was out.
Charles Dickens, still one of the most popular of the Victorian novelists, died in 1870.
Great Expectations, a Victorian novel, was written and published in 1860-1. The story, however,
takes us back to the beginning of the 19th century. Many of the nostalgic references in the
novel distinguish the period in which the story occurs from the period of the novel's
composition.
1812-1840: A Brief Historical Overview
Pip's adventures in Great Expectations occur between Christmas Eve, 1812, and the winter of
1840. In 1812, King George III was still England's monarch, but his madness -- obvious to
everyone since 1810 -- had hastened a transfer of power to the Prince Regent. The Regency
Period lasted from 1810 until George III's death in 1820; afterwards, the Regent became
George IV. George IV died in 1830, and was succeeded by King William, who was in turn
succeeded by Queen Victoria in 1837. The action of Great Expectations thus occurs against
the backdrop of rapid political change -- four monarchs in as many decades. At the same
time, England was undergoing major social and cultural changes as a result of the Industrial
Revolution.
The Industrial Revolution, which took place chiefly in England and America in the late 18th and
early 19th centuries, was a period of significant technological development. The invention and
implementation of steam power -- especially in steamboats and railroads -- revolutionized
transportation, and permanently changed the English landscape. Steamboats began running
on the Thames River in 1815, and passenger railroads spread all over England in the late 1830s
and early 1840s. Such technologies are mostly nascent in Great Expectations. We see Pip in
London in the 1820s, and though steamboats figure among his adventures, he leaves England
years before the railroads were to enter the city. Most of the action of Great Expectations
occurs before 1830; thus, although significant modernizations occurred during the period in
which the novel is set, they are not necessarily described in it. The novel ends with Pip's return
to England in 1840, and though he makes no explicit reference to the way the country has
changed in his absence -- dwelling instead upon personal, emotional changes -- it is important
to realize how much it would have altered: The 1830s had been not only a period of growing
industrialization, but a period of social and political agitation. The first Reform Bill (1832)
extended suffrage, initiating progressive social measures; and Queen Victoria was crowned in
1837. Pip returns, in 1840, to a new England -- thoroughly industrialized, socially progressive,
and Victorian.
1860-1861: A Brief Historical Overview
Dickens wrote and published Great Expectations in 1860-1861, and though the novel looks
back to an earlier time (1812-1840), the period of composition itself is noteworthy. England in
1860-1 was thoroughly Victorian. The Queen had been on the throne since 1837, and would
reign for another 40 years. England was a productive and formidable nation -- it had led the
Industrial Revolution, and controlled a large colonial empire. If, however, 1860-1 was in many
respects a period of stable prosperity, it was also a time of cultural flux. In America, the Civil
War (1861-5) began; and Darwin's Origin of Species, published in 1859, introduced a new topic
of discussion and dissension -- evolution.
Great Expectations looks back upon a period of pre-Victorian development that had
become, by 1860, thoroughly historical. However, as a Victorian novel, Great Expectations is
itself the product of a dynamic moment in history.