Great Expectations Length? (Please Help)

[AWritersWriter]

Hey,

My name is Nick and I am new to the Forum.

I have tried fruitlessly to get an answer to my Question online. I just picked up a soft cover copy of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. It was Published by Penguin Publishing and Edited by Angus Calder. It is 59 Chapters and 493 Pages. I would like know if I have just purchased an Abridged book.

http://www.amazon.ca/Penguin-Classics-Expectations-Charles-Dickens/dp/0140430032/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1290665798&sr=1-5

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_Calder

I hate using Wikipedia but I looked there(799 pp (hardback) and also elsewhere and even other Soft Cover Editions are 700 pages or more.

[Ane]

I have a non-abridged softcover Wordsworth classic which is 399 pages and 59 chapters :)

[LitNetIsGreat]

Yes it sounds fine. If it is abridged it will say so on the book somewhere.

[AWritersWriter]

Hey Ane,

Thanks for the Reply. I think all this distrust comes from me receiving The Count of Monte Cristo Abridged. Now I have to check every book I purchase. Why anyone would temper with classic lit or Literature in general is beyond me. Yeah, ok fine bring some of the words up to date, modernize them etc But that should be the extent of the tempering.

I am still not sure what this Person changed though.

"Editors of Dickens have usually chosen to reprint (in some cases very inaccurately) from the Charles Dickens edition of his works (1867-8), which undoubtedly incorporates his own final changes, and which has therefore appeared to represent his own final word on his texts.

I have not exactly followed suit. Professor John Butt has recently cast doubt on the extent to which Dickens carefully revised the 1867-8 edition. It is suggested that he did not read the proofs of the 1867-8 edition closely except where he had made changes.

I have therefore compared the first 1861 edition very closely with that of the 1868 edition. For punctuation and minor differences almost certainly due to the errors which printers habitually make, I have followed the first edition, except where it is manifestly misprinted. Where the changes changes seem explicable only by Dickens's conscious alteration, I have retained the 1868 readings. I have preserved the most interesting of these changes in the appendixes. I have also consulted the weekly parts on several points, though Dickens revised their text for the first bound edition, and I have taken a dozen readings from them where they offer the best sense.

The net effect of my alterations on the usual text is not large. I have restored some eccentric spellings (e.g. 'oncommon') which Dickens uses to represent the dialect of Joe and Magwitch, and which the 1868 printer seems to have normalized on his own initiative. I have also snapped up a few misprints and replaced some words omitted. On the other hand, spellings and hyphenation except in dialect speech have to some extent been modified; there seems to be no virtue in retaining the spelling of 'good-by' for 'goodbye' or 'recal' for 'recall'.

In other words this should represent the 1861 text enhanced by Dickens' subsequent corrections. Dickens' not very reprehensible carelessness about his own texts, amke it difficult to do more without the scholarly apparatus of footnotes and variant readings which John Butt and Kathleen Tillitson will provide in their forthcoming Clarendon texts but which would merely distract the general reader."

P.S This took a few minutes to Type up. But it seems a bit fishy to me still. Any opinions? And thanks again for the reply Ane and Neely :)

[Ane]

I think it sounds like he has rendered it more like the original work, which an afficionado might consider favorable :) . I know I would prefer reading a version with the dialects etc. But I do understand your generel concern, abridged classics are not my cup of tea either.
I do think you can generally "trust" Penguin Classics.

[dfloyd]

Great Expectations. There is the one written first by Dickens where Estelle and Pip do not get togther in the end. There is Dickens' revised version, rewritten at the urging of his publisher who wanted a happier ending. Some publishers enclose both endings. So the different endings can give a different page count. Also, if the book is illustrated, if the illustrations have page numbers, there can be a difference. My copy of GE was published by the Limited Editions Club in 1937, and it has 487 pages. It is illustrated, but the illustrations do not have page numbers. The LEC was very particular in having the most accurate editions available so your copy sounds as if it is about the right pagination.

[AWritersWriter]

The Book actually starts on Page 36. So I have made a slight error. Its 459 Pages. There are no Illustrations. But the book does contain the Alternative Ending.