Great Expectations

Great Expectations first appeared in 36-weekly parts in Dickens’s All The Year Round (1 December 1860 to 3 August 1861) and was not illustrated. However, the earlier and almost parallel first American printing was. Appearing in Harper’s Weekly (24 November 1860 to 3 August 1861) their Great Expectations carried 40 illustrations by John McLenan, the so-called ‘American Phiz’. Another point of difference was that the first American book edition (1861) carried Dickens’s pen-name ‘Boz’, which he had stopped using in 1844. Like the earlier David Copperfield, Great Expectations is strongly autobiographical, and mirrors many aspects of Dickens’s life. The ‘led/lead’ reference on display is just one bibliographical difference that helps distinguish between first, second, and later printings.

[Page 150 and 151 from Charles Dickens's Great Expectations, 1st edition, Volume III, Chapter X. ]