Great Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens. It was first published in serial form in the publication All the Year Round from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. It has been adapted for stage and screen over 250 times.
Great Expectations is written in the style of bildungsroman, which follows the story of a man or woman in their quest for maturity, usually starting from childhood and ending in the main characters eventual adulthood. Great Expectations is the story of the orphan Pip, writing about his life from his early childhood until adulthood and attempting to become a gentleman along the way. The novel can also be considered semi-autobiographical of Dickens, like much of his work, drawing on his experiences of life and people.
The main plot of Great Expectations takes place between Christmas Eve 1812, when the protagonist is about seven years old (and which happens to be the year of Dickens birth), and the winter of 1840.