Great Expectations in the context of "Bildungsroman"

In literature, a serial is a printing or publishing format by which a single larger work, often a work of narrative fiction, is published in smaller, sequential instalments. The instalments are also known as numbers, parts, fascicules or fascicles, and may be released either as separate publications or within sequential issues of a periodical publication, such as a magazine or newspaper.

Serialisation can also begin with a single short story that is subsequently turned into a series. Historically, such series have been published in periodicals. Popular short-story series are often published together in book form as collections.

Philip Pirrip, called Pip, is the protagonist and narrator of Charles Dickens's novel Great Expectations (1861). He is amongst the most popular characters in English literature. Pip narrates his story many years after the novel's events occur. The novel follows Pip's process from childhood innocence to adulthood. The financial and social rise of the protagonist is accompanied by an emotional and moral deterioration, which forces Pip to recognize his negative expectations in a new self-awareness.

Abel Magwitch is a major fictional character from Charles Dickens' 1861 novel Great Expectations.

Miss Havisham is a character in Charles Dickens's 1861 novel Great Expectations. She is a wealthy spinster, once jilted at the altar, who insists on wearing her wedding dress for the rest of her life. She lives in a ruined mansion with her adopted daughter, Estella. Dickens describes her as looking like "the witch of the place". In the novel, she schemes to have the young orphan, Pip, fall in love with Estella, so that Estella can "break his heart".

Although she has often been portrayed in film versions as very elderly, Dickens's own notes indicate that she is only in her mid-thirties at the start of the novel. However, it is indicated in the novel that her long seclusion without sunlight has aged her. She is one of the most gothic characters in the work of Dickens.

Estella Havisham (married name Estella Drummle) is a significant character in Charles Dickens' 1861 novel Great Expectations.

Like the protagonist, Pip, Estella is introduced as an orphan, but where Pip was raised by his sister and her husband to become a blacksmith, Estella was adopted and raised by the wealthy and eccentric Miss Havisham to become a lady.