Surveying the key debates about a novel which has provoked an immensely rich critical response, the extracts and essays included here examine Great Expectations in structural, symbolic, social, political, psychological, and sexual terms, relating the novel to its own time and to a range of twentieth-century theoretical perspectives. Exploring secondary sources, from initial reviews in the 1860s to the most up-to-date critiques of the 1990s, the Guide is an essential resource for the study of one of Dickens's most complex works.