Series Editor: Joseph Pearce

 
Great Expectations cover

Great Expectations

Charles Dickens

680 pp, $11.95. Order Now!

"...My great expectations had all dissolved, like our own marsh mists before the sun..."

Pope John Paul I described Dickens' books as "filled with love for the poor and a sense of social regeneration . . . warm with imagination and humanity". Such true charity permeates Dickens' novels and ultimately drives the characters either to choose regeneration or risk disintegration. In Great Expectations, Pip — symbolic of the pilgrim convert — gains both improved fortunes and a growth in wisdom, but as he acquires the latter, he must relinquish the former — ending with a wealth of profound goodness, not of worldly goods.

Study Guide to Great Expectations

43 pp, $3.95

ICE Study Guides are constructed to aid the reader of ICE classics to achieve a level of critical and literary appreciation befitting the works themselves.

Ideally suited for students themselves and as a guide for teachers, the ICE Study Guides serve as a complement to the treasures of critical appreciation already included in ICE titles.

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That the Dickensian message was a Christian one is unmistakable. Reminiscent of an Augustinian model, one of reflection, conversion, and moral improvement, Pip undergoes an internal change that manifests itself in his profound contrition for his earlier deeds and his equally profound resolution to make amends. As we travel with Pip, we find that Dickens leads us to an acceptance of worldly limitations and an anticipation of final salvation.

A look at the essays

Jill Kriegel situates the reader with the introductory essay.

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Meet the Minds behind the Great Expectations Edition

Editor

Jill Kriegel

Jill Kriegel

Jill Kriegel earned her Ph.D. in Comparative Studies from Florida Atlantic University. With emphases in nineteenth-century British literature and ancient Greek and early Christian philosophy, her dissertation explores Augustinian echoes in the novels of Charles Dickens. She has published articles in the Saint Austin Review (StAR) and Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture. In addition, she is editor of Ignatius Critical Edition volumes. Jill teaches English at St. Joseph's Catholic School in Greenville, South Carolina.

Critical Essays in

 

Critical Essayists

Raimund Borgmeier

Raimund Borgmeier is professor emeritus of English Literature at the University of Giessen, Germany. He has been visiting professor of English at the University of Wisconsin in both Madison and Milwaukee. His research fields are Shakespeare, eighteenth-century and Romantic poetry and culture, special genres (science fiction and crime fiction), nineteenth-century fiction, and contemporary literature. In 2000, he was honored with the Festschrift Lineages of the Novel: Essays in Honour of R. B., ed. B. Reitz and E. Voigts-Virchow.

Crystal Downing

Crystal Downing

Crystal Downing received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and is Distinguished Professor of English and Film Studies at Messiah College in Pennsylvania. She has published on a wide variety of literary topics, from Shakespeare to the Brontës, and has won both national and international awards for her essays on film. Her three books explore the relationship between Christianity and poststructuralism: Writing Performances (2004); How Postmodernism Serves (My) Faith (2006); and Changing Signs of Truth (2012).

Anthony Esolen

Anthony Esolen is a professor of English at Providence College. His work includes the Modern Library translations of Dante's Divine Comedy (Random House), Ironies of Faith: The Deep Laughter at the Heart of Christian Literature (ISI Books), and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization (Regnery).

Michael Hanke

Michael Hanke obtained his PhD and his habilitation at German universities. He taught English Literature at the universities of Hamburg, Duisburg, and Gie�en; has published books on John Crowe Ransom, Roy Campbell, and German Expressionist poetry; has written many articles on English literature; and has edited several collections of critical essays.

 

Mitchell Kalpakgian

Mitchell Kalpakgian earned degrees from Bowdoin College (B.A.), the University of Kansas (M.A.), and the University of Iowa (Ph.D.). He has completed fifty years of teaching at a number of small liberal arts colleges including Simpson College (Iowa), Christendom College (Virginia), and Wyoming Catholic College. He currently teaches part-time at various schools and colleges in New Hampshire (Thomas More College, The College of Saint Mary Magdalen, Mount Royal Academy, and New England Classical Academy). He is a contributing editor of New Oxford Review, writes for St. Austin Review and Homiletic and Pastoral Review, and reviews books for The Wanderer. He has published six books: The Marvelous in Fielding's Novels, The Mysteries of Life in Children's Literature, The Lost Arts of Modern Civilization, An Armenian Family Reunion, Modern Manners: The Poetry of Conduct and The Virtue of Civility, and The Virtues We Need Again. He has designed homeschooling literature courses for Seton Home School, and he also teaches online courses for Queen of Heaven Academy. He has written online columns for The Seton Magazine (setonmagazine.com), Truth and Charity Forum (truthandcharityforum.org), and The Civilized Reader (thecivilizedreader.com).

Robert P. Lewis

Robert P. Lewis is emeritus professor of English at Marist College and holds a PhD in Victorian Literature from New York University. He has published articles and reviews in Religion and the Arts and Literature and Theology, and has an essay forthcoming in a volume from Catholic University Press on contemporary Catholic writers. He instituted, and for a decade directed, the Catholic studies program at Marist.

Critical Essays in

 

Regis Martin

Regis Martin is professor of theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville, where, in addition to courses on Christ and the Church, he teaches such landmarks of literature as the works of Dante, Eliot, and Flannery O'Connor. The author of several books, including The Last Things and The Suffering of Love, he is married and the father of many children.

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