Great Expectations was first published as a serial in Charles Dickens’ weekly periodical All the Year Round, from 1 December 1860 to August 1861 in 59 chapters. In October 1861, Chapman and Hall published the novel in three volumes. Volume 1 contained chapters 1-19. Volume 2 contained chapters 20-39. Volume 3 contained chapters 40-59.

You can read all of the Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations at The Circumlocution Office. Use the chapter list below to access a particular chapter.

Volume 1.

CHAPTER 1.

My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.

Great Expectations (Chapter 1).

CHAPTER 2.

Ask no questions, and you’ll be told no lies.

Great Expectations (Chapter 2).

CHAPTER 3.

The man took strong sharp sudden bites, just like the dog.

Great Expectations (Chapter 3).

CHAPTER 4.

Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and some people do the same by their religion.

Great Expectations (Chapter 4).

CHAPTER 5.

The bellows seemed to roar for the fugitives.

Great Expectations (Chapter 5).

CHAPTER 6.

I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.

Great Expectations (Chapter 6).

CHAPTER 7.

When he were overtook with drink, he hammered away at my mother, most onmerciful.

Great Expectations (Chapter 7).

CHAPTER 8.

The dress had been put upon the rounded figure of a young woman, and that the figure upon which it now hung loose had shrunk to skin and bone.

Great Expectations (Chapter 8).

CHAPTER 9.

If you can’t get to be oncommon through going straight, you’ll never get to do it through going crooked.

Great Expectations (Chapter 9).

CHAPTER 10.

There was a quantity of chalk about our country, and perhaps the people neglected no opportunity of turning it to account.

Great Expectations (Chapter 10).

CHAPTER 11.

I have a pretty large experience of boys, and you’re a bad set of fellows.

Great Expectations (Chapter 11).

CHAPTER 12.

Break their hearts my pride and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy!

Great Expectations (Chapter 12). Quotation which Pip recalls is repeatedly said by Miss Havisham to Estella.

CHAPTER 13.

I had liked it once, but once was not now.

Great Expectations (Chapter 13).

CHAPTER 14.

It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home.

Great Expectations (Chapter 14).

CHAPTER 15.

He never even seemed to come to his work on purpose, but would slouch in as if by mere accident.

Great Expectations (Chapter 15).

CHAPTER 16.

They took up several obviously wrong people, and they ran their heads very hard against wrong ideas, and persisted in trying to fit the circumstances to the ideas, instead of trying to extract ideas from the circumstances.

Great Expectations (Chapter 16).

CHAPTER 17.

What would it signify to me, being coarse and common, if nobody had told me so!

Great Expectations (Chapter 17).

CHAPTER 18.

The longer the silence lasted, the more unable I felt to speak.

Great Expectations (Chapter 18).

CHAPTER 19.

We need never be ashamed of our tears.

Great Expectations (Chapter 19).

Volume 2.

CHAPTER 20.

While I was scared by the immensity of London, I think I might have had some faint doubts whether it was not rather ugly, crooked, narrow, and dirty.

Great Expectations (Chapter 20).

CHAPTER 21.

A dry man, rather short in stature, with a square wooden face, whose expression seemed to have been imperfectly chipped out with a dull-edged chisel.

Great Expectations (Chapter 21).

CHAPTER 22.

No varnish can hide the grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself.

Great Expectations (Chapter 22).

CHAPTER 23.

CHAPTER 24.

My guiding-star always is, ‘Get hold of portable property’.

Great Expectations (Chapter 24).

CHAPTER 25.

This is a pretty pleasure-ground.

Great Expectations (Chapter 25).

CHAPTER 26.

He washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or a dentist.

Great Expectations (Chapter 26).

CHAPTER 27.

Throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise.

Great Expectations (Chapter 27).

CHAPTER 28.

All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers.

Great Expectations (Chapter 28).

CHAPTER 29.

In a word, it was impossible for me to separate her, in the past or in the present, from the innermost life of my life.

Great Expectations (Chapter 29).

CHAPTER 30.

CHAPTER 31.

CHAPTER 32.

CHAPTER 33.

You may be certain that I laugh because they fail.

Great Expectations (Chapter 33).

CHAPTER 34.

We spent as much money as we could, and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us. We were always more or less miserable, and most of our acquaintance were in the same condition. There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did.

Great Expectations (Chapter 34).

CHAPTER 35.

CHAPTER 36.

CHAPTER 37.

I wished my own good fortune to reflect some rays upon him.

Great Expectations (Chapter 37).

CHAPTER 38.

I never had one hour’s happiness in her society, and yet my mind all round the four-and-twenty hours was harping on the happiness of having her with me unto death.

Great Expectations (Chapter 38).

CHAPTER 39.

I lived rough, that you should live smooth.

Great Expectations (Chapter 39).

Volume 3.

CHAPTER 40.

Don’t commit yourself, and don’t commit any one. You understand—any one. Don’t tell me anything: I don’t want to know anything; I am not curious.

Great Expectations (Chapter 40).

CHAPTER 41.

I have been bred to no calling, and I am fit for nothing.

Great Expectations (Chapter 41).

CHAPTER 42.

In jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail.

Great Expectations (Chapter 42).

CHAPTER 43.

As he pretended not to see me, I pretended not to see him.

Great Expectations (Chapter 43). Pip has an awkward encounter with Bentley Drummle.

CHAPTER 44.

You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with.

Great Expectations (Chapter 44). Pip professes his life-long attraction for Estella.

CHAPTER 45.

It’s a good rule never to leave documentary evidence if you can help it, because you don’t know when it may be put in.

Great Expectations (Chapter 45). John Wemmick applies legal caution to his gate-house notes.

CHAPTER 46.

I little supposed my heart could ever be as heavy and anxious at parting from him as it was now.

Great Expectations (Chapter 46).

CHAPTER 47.

Condemned to inaction and a state of constant restlessness and suspense.

Great Expectations (Chapter 47).

CHAPTER 48.

CHAPTER 49.

I stole her heart away, and put ice in its place.

Great Expectations (Chapter 49). Miss Havisham reflects on her teachings to Estella

CHAPTER 50.

This pain of the mind was much harder to strive against than any bodily pain I suffered.

Great Expectations (Chapter 50).

CHAPTER 51.

CHAPTER 52.

CHAPTER 53.

CHAPTER 54.

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.

Great Expectations (Chapter 54).

CHAPTER 55.

CHAPTER 56.

CHAPTER 57.

Tell me of my ingratitude. Don’t be so good to me!

Great Expectations (Chapter 57).

CHAPTER 58.

CHAPTER 59.

Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be.

Great Expectations (Chapter 59).