Editing Great Expectations (section)

==The creative process==
[[File:Charles Dickens - Project Gutenberg eText 13103.jpg|thumb|[[Charles Dickens]], c. 1860]]
As Dickens began writing ''Great Expectations'', he undertook a series of hugely popular and remunerative reading tours. His domestic life had, however, disintegrated in the late 1850s and he had separated from his wife, [[Catherine Dickens]], and was having a secret affair with the much younger [[Ellen Ternan]]. It has been suggested that the icy teasing of the character Estella is based on Ellen Ternan's reluctance to become Dickens's mistress.<ref>{{cite book |title=Great Expectations |chapter=Introduction |page=12 |author=Dickens, Charles |publisher=Penguin English Library |year=1984 }}</ref>

===Beginning===
In his ''Book of Memoranda'', begun in 1855, Dickens wrote names for possible characters: Magwitch, Provis, Clarriker, Compey, Pumblechook, Orlick, Gargery, Wopsle, Skiffins, some of which became familiar in ''Great Expectations''. There is also a reference to a "knowing man", a possible sketch of Bentley Drummle.<ref name="s259">{{harvnb|Paul Schlicke|1999|p=259}}</ref> Another evokes a house full of "Toadies and Humbugs", foreshadowing the visitors to Satis House in chapter 11.<ref name="s259" /><ref>[[Fred Kaplan (biographer)|Fred Kaplan]], ed. ''Dickens' Book of Memoranda'', 1981.</ref> [[Margaret Cardwell]] discovered the "premonition" of ''Great Expectations'' from a 25 September 1855 [[Letters of Charles Dickens|letter from Dickens]] to W. H. Wills, in which Dickens speaks of recycling an "odd idea" from the Christmas special "[[A House to Let]]" and "the pivot round which my next book shall revolve".<ref name="Wilkie letters">Charles Dickens, letters, Letter to [[Wilkie Collins]], 6 September 1858.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Charles Dickens|1993|p=xiv}}</ref> The "odd idea" concerns an individual who "retires to an old lonely house…resolved to shut out the world and hold no communion with it".<ref name="Wilkie letters"/>

In an 8 August 1860 letter to [[Thomas Carlyle]], Dickens reported his agitation whenever he prepared a new book.<ref name="s259" /> A month later, in a letter to [[John Forster (biographer)|John Forster]], Dickens announced that he just had a new idea.<ref>Charles Dickens, Letters, Letter to [[John Forster (biographer)|John Forster]], mid-September 1860 (?).</ref>

===Publication in ''All the Year Round''===
[[File:Publicité pour Great Expectations dans All the Year Round.jpeg|thumb|left|Advertisement for ''Great Expectations'' in ''[[All the Year Round]]'']]
Dickens was pleased with the idea, calling it "such a very fine, new and grotesque idea" in a letter to Forster.<ref name=Hollington /> He planned to write "a little piece", a "grotesque tragi-comic conception", about a young hero who befriends an escaped convict, who then makes a fortune in Australia and anonymously bequeaths his property to the hero. In the end, the hero loses the money because it is forfeited to the Crown. In his biography of Dickens, Forster wrote that in the early idea "was the germ of Pip and Magwitch, which at first he intended to make the groundwork of a tale in the old twenty-number form".<ref name="Forster9.3">{{harvnb|John Forster|1872–1874|p=9.3}}</ref> Dickens presented the relationship between Pip and Magwitch pivotal to ''Great Expectations'' but without Miss Havisham, Estella, or other characters he later created.

As the idea and Dickens's ambition grew, he began writing. However, in September, the weekly ''All the Year Round'' saw its sales fall, and its flagship publication, ''A Day's Ride'' by [[Charles Lever]], lost favour with the public. Dickens "called a council of war", and believed that to save the situation, "the one thing to be done was for [him] to strike in".<ref>Charles Dickens, ''Letters'', Letter to John Forster, 4 October 1860.</ref> The "very fine, new and grotesque idea" became the magazine's new support: weeklies, five hundred pages, just over one year (1860–1861), thirty-six episodes, starting 1 December. The magazine continued to publish Lever's novel until its completion on 23 March 1861,<ref name="s260"/> but it became secondary to ''Great Expectations''. Immediately, sales resumed, and critics responded positively, as exemplified by ''[[The Times]]''{{'}}s praise: "''Great Expectations'' is not, indeed, [Dickens's] best work, but it is to be ranked among his happiest".<ref>{{cite news |last=Dallas |first=E. S. |title=Great Expectations |url=http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/viewArticle.arc?pageId=ARCHIVE-The_Times-1861-10-17-06 |access-date=25 January 2013 |work=[[The Times]] |date=17 October 1861 |page=6 |url-access=subscription }}{{dead link|date=April 2025|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref>

Dickens, whose health was not the best, felt "The planning from week to week was unimaginably difficult" but persevered.<ref name="s260">{{harvnb|Paul Schlicke|1999|p=260}}</ref> He thought he had found "a good name", decided to use the first person "throughout", and thought the beginning was "excessively droll": "I have put a child and a good-natured foolish man, in relations that seem to me very funny".<ref name="Dickens1860">Charles Dickens, ''Letters'', Letter to John Forster, beginning October 1860.</ref> Four weekly episodes were "ground off the wheel" in October 1860,<ref>Charles Dickens, ''Letters'', Letter to Wilkie Collins, 14 October 1860.</ref> and apart from one reference to the "bondage" of his heavy task,<ref>Charles Dickens, ''Letters'', Letter to [[Edmund Yates]], 24 February 1861.</ref> the months passed without the anguished cries that usually accompanied the writing of his novels.<ref name="s260"/> He did not even use the ''Number Plans'' or ''Mems'';<ref group="N">Nineteen double sheets folded in half: on the left, names, incidents, and expressions; on the right, sections of the current chapter.</ref> he had only a few notes on the characters' ages, the tide ranges for chapter 54, and the draft of an ending. In late December, Dickens wrote to [[Mary Louisa Boyle|Mary Boyle]] that "''Great Expectations'' [is] a very great success and universally liked".<ref name=Boyle>Charles Dickens, ''Letters'', Letter to Mary Boyle, 28 December 1860.</ref>

[[File:Dickensjunior-1874.jpg|thumb|upright=0.7|[[Charles Dickens Jr.]] (in 1874), possibly the model for Herbert Pocket]]
Dickens gave six readings from 14 March to 18 April 1861, and in May, Dickens took a few days' holiday in [[Dover]]. On the eve of his departure, he took some friends and family members for a trip by boat from [[Blackwall, London|Blackwall]] to [[Southend-on-Sea]]. Ostensibly for pleasure, the mini-cruise was actually a working session for Dickens to examine banks of the river in preparation for the chapter devoted to Magwitch's attempt to escape.<ref name="Forster9.3"/> Dickens then revised Herbert Pocket's appearance, no doubt, asserts Margaret Cardwell, to look more like his son [[Charles Dickens Jr.|Charley]].<ref>{{harvnb|Charles Dickens|1993|p=xxvii–xxx}}</ref> On 11 June 1861, Dickens wrote to Macready that ''Great Expectations'' had been completed and on 15 June, asked the editor to prepare the novel for publication.<ref name="s260" />

===Revised ending===
Following comments by [[Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton|Edward Bulwer-Lytton]] that the ending was too sad, Dickens rewrote it prior to publication. The ending set aside by Dickens has Pip, who is still single, briefly see Estella in London; after becoming Bentley Drummle's widow, she has remarried.<ref name="s260"/><ref>{{cite web|website=listverse.com|url=http://listverse.com/2013/01/14/deleted-book-chapters/|date=14 January 2013|title=10 Deleted Chapters that Transformed Famous Books|author=Symon, Evan V.|access-date=1 September 2014|archive-date=5 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905233130/http://listverse.com/2013/01/14/deleted-book-chapters/|url-status=live}}</ref> It appealed to Dickens due to its originality: "[the] winding up will be away from all such things as they conventionally go".<ref name="s260" /><ref>Charles Dickens, Letters, Letter to John Forster, April 1861.</ref> Dickens revised the ending for publication so that Pip meets Estella in the ruins of Satis House, she is a widow and he is single. His changes at the conclusion of the novel did not quite end either with the final weekly part or the first bound edition, because Dickens further changed the last sentence in the amended 1868 version from "I could see the shadow of no parting from her"<ref name="s260" /> to "I saw no shadow of another parting from her".<ref name="Dickens412">{{harvnb|Charles Dickens|1993|p=412}}</ref> As Pip uses [[litotes]], "no shadow of another parting", it is ambiguous whether Pip and Estella marry or Pip remains single. [[Angus Calder]], writing for an edition in the [[Penguin Classics|Penguin English Library]], believed the less definite phrasing of the amended 1868 version perhaps hinted at a buried meaning: 'at this happy moment, I did not see the shadow of our subsequent parting looming over us.'<ref>Great Expectations, Penguin, 1965, p. 496</ref>

In a letter to Forster, Dickens explained his decision to alter the draft ending: "You will be surprised to hear that I have changed the end of ''Great Expectations'' from and after Pip's return to Joe's&nbsp;... Bulwer, who has been, as I think you know, extraordinarily taken with the book, strongly urged it upon me, after reading the proofs, and supported his views with such good reasons that I have resolved to make the change. I have put in as pretty a little piece of writing as I could, and I have no doubt the story will be more acceptable through the alteration".<ref name = Brinton>{{cite web|url=http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/english-association/publications/bookmarks/dickens/D12.pdf|title=Dickens Bookmarks 12 – Great Expectations|author=Ian Brinton|access-date=25 January 2013|archive-date=4 November 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131104214453/http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/english-association/publications/bookmarks/dickens/D12.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>Charles Dickens, Letters, Letter to John Forster, 25 June 1861.</ref>

This discussion between Dickens, Bulwer-Lytton and Forster has provided the basis for much discussion on Dickens's underlying views for this famous novel. Earle Davis, in his 1963 study of Dickens, wrote that "it would be an inadequate moral point to deny Pip any reward after he had shown a growth of character," and that "Eleven years might change Estella too".<ref>{{harvnb|Earle Davis|1963|pp=261–262}}<!--[https://archive.org/details/flintflame00earl <!-- quote=an inadequate. -->]. Retrieved 27 January 2013.--></ref> John Forster felt that the original ending was "more consistent" and "more natural"<ref>{{harvnb|John Forster|1872–1874|p=9. 3}}</ref><ref name="s261"/> but noted the new ending's popularity.<ref name="d262">{{harvnb|Earle Davis|1963|p=262}}</ref> [[George Gissing]] called that revision "a strange thing, indeed, to befall Dickens" and felt that ''Great Expectations'' would have been perfect had Dickens not altered the ending in deference to Bulwer-Lytton.<ref group="N">George Gissing wrote: "''Great Expectations'' (1861) would be nearly perfect in its mechanism but for the unhappy deference to Lord Lytton's judgment, which caused the end to be altered. Dickens meant to have left Pip a lonely man, and of course rightly so; by the irony of fate he was induced to spoil his work through a brother novelist's desire for a happy ending, a strange thing, indeed, to befall Dickens."</ref><ref>{{harvnb|George Gissing|1925|p=19}}, chapter III, ''The Story-Teller''</ref>

In contrast, John Hillis-Miller stated that Dickens's personality was so assertive that Bulwer-Lytton had little influence, and welcomed the revision: "The mists of infatuation have cleared away, [Estella and Pip] can be joined".<ref>{{harvnb|John Hillis-Miller|1958|p=278}}</ref> Earl Davis notes that G. B. Shaw published the novel in 1937 for ''The Limited Editions Club'' with the first ending and that ''The Rinehart Edition'' of 1979 presents both endings.<ref name="d262"/><ref>{{cite book|author=Charles Dickens and Earle Davis|title=Great Expectations|location=New York|publisher=Holt Rinehart & Winston|year=1979|isbn=978-0030779008|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/greatexpectation0000dick_a6u1}}</ref><ref>For a more detailed look into the revision of the ending, see Calum Kerr, ''From Magwitch to Miss Havisham: Narrative Interaction and Mythic Structure in Charles Dickens’'' Great Expectations, {{cite web|url=http://salempress.com/store/pdfs/expectations_critical_insights.pdf|title=''Great Expectations'', Critical Insights|access-date=27 January 2013|archive-date=21 December 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101221222536/http://salempress.com/Store/pdfs/expectations_critical_insights.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>

[[George Orwell]] wrote, "Psychologically the latter part of ''Great Expectations'' is about the best thing Dickens ever did," but, like John Forster and several early 20th century writers, including [[George Bernard Shaw]], felt that the original ending was more consistent with the draft, as well as the natural working out of the tale.<ref name=Orwell>{{cite book |url=http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/dickens/english/e_chd |author=Orwell, George |title=Inside the Whale and Other Essays |year=1940 |publisher=Victor Gollancz |location=London |access-date=7 December 2012 |archive-date=13 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181213211629/http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/dickens/english/e_chd |url-status=live }}</ref> Modern literary criticism is split over the matter.