As you look at the way the book appeared in its first, serial publication, see if you can discover
- how Dickens took advantage of the chapter or pairs of chapters that he doled out to readers to structure his novel;
- if a different structure appears in the triple-decker edition of 1861 and in the one-volume editions in which present-day readers encounter Great Expectations; and
- any fundamental different of effect, mood, or narrative structure between this work's periodical publication and those that appeared in four and eight installments.
All the Year Round, Volume IV, 1860-1861
- December 1, 1860: i, ii
- December 8, 1860: iii-iv
- December 15, 1860: v
- December 22, 1860: vi-vii
- December 29, 1860: viii
- January 5, 1861: ix-x
- January 12, 1861: xi
- January 19, 1861: xii, xiii
- January 26, 1861: xiv, xv
- February 2, 1861: xvi-xvi
- February 9, 1861: xviii
- February 16, 1861: xix
- February 23, 1861: xx, xxi
- March 2, 1861: xxii
- March 9, 1861: xxiii, xxiv
- March 16, 1861: xxv, xxvi
- March 23, 1861: xvii, xviii
All the Year Round, Volume V, 1861
- March 30, 1861: xxix
- April 6, 1861: xxx, xxxi
- April 13, 1861: xxxii, xxxiii
- April 20, 1861: xxxiv, xxxv
- April 27, 1861: xxxvi, xxxvii
- May 4, 1861: xxxviii,
- May 11, 1861: xxxix
- May 18, 1861: xl
- May 25, 1861: xli, xlii
- June 1, 1861: xliii, xliv
- June 8, 1861: xlv, xlvi
- June 5, 1861: xlvii, xlviii
- June 22, 1861: xlix, l
- June 29, 1861: li, lii
- July 6, 1861: liii
- July 13, 1861: liv
- July 20, 1861: lv, lvi
- July 27, 1861: lvii
- August 3, 1861: lviii, lix
The 1861 three-volume edition
In this first book publication of the novel, Volume I contained the first nineteen chapters, each of which corresponds to the identifcally numbered one in All the Year Round. The chapter numbering begins again, however, for the second and third volumes, so that Volume II, Chapter I = Chapter xx in All the Year Round, and Volume III, Chapter I = Chapter xl in All the Year Round.
This information is based on Appendix C in Margaret Caldwell's 1993 Clarendon Press edition of Great Expectations. Thanks to Eva Burkowski for picking up some typos!
Last modified 4 December 2004