Great Expectations

Great Expectations Published 1861 I ABOUT THE AUTHOR Charles John Huffam Dickens was born February 7 , 1812 , in Portsmouth England . He was the son of John Dickens , a clerk in the Navy Pay Office and Elizabeth (Barrow ) Dickens . Young Dickens was taught at home by his mother , and attended a Dame School (a school in which the rudiments of reading and writing were taught by a woman in her own home ) at Chatham for a short time , and Wellington Academy in London . Later , he further educated himself by reading widely

in the British Museum . Dickens 's father was incompetent at managing money , and was eventually sent to debtor 's prison . Attempting to support herself and the younger children in more modest quarters when they had to leave the family home , Mrs Dickens tried to set herself up as the principal of a girls ' school , but no one enrolled any children to be taught by her . Dickens was sent at age 12 to work in a run-down part of London , in a business owned by a family friend , sticking labels on bottles of boot-black he lived in a small , humble rooming house nearby . For months his only recreation was depressing Sunday visits to his father in debtor 's prison . This life horrified him , giving him belly cramps and lasting nightmares . Even the friendship of a poor boy named Fagin who tended Dickens when he was sick at work was not enough to relieve his shame

After some months the family 's...