Despite any literary controversy over Dickens’ style, most critics agree that Great Expectations is his best book. The story, while set in the early part of the 1800s, was written in 1860 during the Victorian era that began with the coronation of Queen Victoria in 1837 and lasted until her death in 1901. Virtues emphasized at that time included integrity, respectability, a sense of public duty, and maintaining a close-knit family.
The period of the novel was a time of change. England was expanding worldwide and becoming a wealthy world power. The economy was changing from a mainly agricultural one to an industrial and trade-based one. With increasing technological changes came clashes with religion, and increasing social problems. Machines were making factories more productive, yet raw sewage spilled into London streets — people lived in terrible conditions as slums lined the banks of the Thames. Children as young as five were being forced to work twelve and thirteen hours a day at a poverty wage.
While the world became more democratic, so, too, did literature. Unlike the romantic literature that preceded it — literature that focused on the glories of the upper classes — Victorian literature focused on the masses. The people wanted characters, relationships, and social concerns that mattered to them, and they had the economic power to demand it. Novels were published in magazines in serial form — in ten or twenty weekly or monthly installments — and if readers didn’t care for a particular story, circulation dropped and the magazine lost money. Consequently, magazines worked hard to keep their readers interested, in suspense, and buying the next copy. Dickens published Great Expectations in weekly installments that ran from December 1860 until August 1861.
