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"We have reviewed other books in the Literature
in Context Series enthusiastically and this casebook is no exception.
So, if your English teachers teach this novel, then this is an essential
purchase....Highly recommended."
Reference for Students—GaleGroup.com
Reviews (print)
"Although I have read Great Expectations
half a dozen times, George Newlin's impressive study showed me new
depths and meanings I'd never glimpsed before. Further, Newlin writes
very, very well: clearly, but with weight. Academics should take a
lesson, and Dickens lovers should read the book post haste."
John
Jakes (print)
Author of the Kent Family
Chronicles
Writer of the new musical, Great
Expectations
After 140 years, Great Expectations is still one of the West’s
most admired, read and studied works of fiction. This sourcebook
of primary documents, collateral readings and essays brings to life
both Dickens’ masterpiece and the social issues reflected in it.
Author George Newlin has collected significant primary sources
on the question, “What is a ‘gentleman’?” and on the dilemma of Victorian
women. The work also covers blacksmithing, crime and punishment
in early 19th-century England, the transportation of convicts,
and the state of the London theatre during the period. Essays
and original materials on class distinctions with demographic data
from the 1812 Census, and on the feminist movement, point up the
socioeconomic hierarchies and strata that characterized the early
Industrial Revolution and subsequent Victorian society. Other documents
depict physical settings such as the Marsh County and the Thames,
and Bow Street in London. This collection of sources will help
to broaden students’ understanding of Great Expectations and
place it within its historical context.
In addition, this online sourcebook provides the user access to:
- Illustrations of the
characters in Great Expectations
- Dickens Biographical
site including his novel and characters, glossary, timeline, London map, and
related links
- Victorian Web: Literature, History, Culture, Gender Issues,
Theatre and Popular Entertainment in the age of Victoria
- Interactive Map of
1859 London
- 1861 Review of Great Expectations
- Photos of Dickens’
Gad’s Hill
- E-Texts to Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities,
Little Dorritt, Bleak House, Barnaby Rudge, David Copperfield, Our Mutual
Friend, Dombey and Son, Martin Chuzzlewit, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, The
Old Curiosity Shop, The Woman in White, The American Senator, Lady Anna,
Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Frankenstein, the Modern Prometheus,
and others
- Thames River Path
Online Guide, with timeline of events in the Thames’ history and photographs of
the river
- Dickens’ 1826 essay
on Newgate Prison
- History of Newgate
prison with illustrations of condemned prisoners
- History of the Bow
Street Police Station, considered to be London’s most famous police station
- Convicts in Australia
: The Hulks and Penal Transportation, a site explaining Britain’s policy of
punishing its criminals by sending them to a ‘hulk’ and ‘transporting’ them to
Australia
- Web History of
Australia with detailed timeline, founding documents and more
- Biographical profiles
of Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Victor Hugo, Phillip
Dormer Chesterfield, Anthony Trollope, Harold Laski, Mary Wollstonecraft, Percy
Bysshe Shelley, H.W. Longfellow, Sir Robert Peel, Oscar Wilde, W.S. Gilbson,
George Bernard Shaw, Henrik Ibsen, Arthur Pinero, John Forster and others
- Glossary of cultural
references and historical idioms from Great
Expectations
- Web-based study
questions
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