Havisham
A Novel Inspired by Dickens’s Great Expectations
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4.0 • 4 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Enter the world of Catherine Havisham, the haunting character from Charles Dickens's Great Expectations, in this mesmerizing prelude to the classic novel.
Before she became the iconic Miss Havisham of Great Expectations, she was Catherine, a young woman with a promising future. The spirited daughter of a wealthy brewer, Catherine is never far from the smell of hops and the arresting letters on the brewhouse wall—HAVISHAM—a reminder of her family name and business.
Sent by her father to stay with the Chadwycks, Catherine discovers elegant pastimes to elevate her family's new money status. But despite her growing sophistication, Catherine remains naive, and when a charismatic stranger pays her attention, everything—her heart, her future, the very Havisham name—is at risk.
In Havisham, Ronald Frame explores the psychological trauma that transformed young Catherine into Miss Havisham, cursed to roam the halls of the mansion in the tattered remains of her wedding dress. This haunting Dickensian tale of a woman's coming of age in Victorian London offers an intimate look at the British class system and the dark origins of an iconic literary figure.
A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of 2013.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This stylish but dour "prelude" to Charles Dickens's classic Great Expectations comes from Glaswegian dramatist and author Frame (The Lantern Bearers). Catherine Havisham grows up in privilege and leisure at the imposing Satis House, courtesy of her affluent father, Joseph, who runs the most prosperous brewery in North Kent and ships her off to the aristocratic Chadwyck family to polish her social graces. Joseph, a widower, sparks his teenage daughter's resentment by disclosing he has remarried, though his second wife has since died, and Catherine also comes to loathe her ne'er-do-well half-brother, Arthur, after he begins living with them. She falls in love with the dashing racetrack gambler Charles Compeyson, and Joseph dies, leaving her the brewery. She becomes engaged to Charles, who wants to manage the Havisham brewery. However, Charles jilts his would-be bride, and Catherine's life descends into seclusion and a slow madness; she wears only her wedding dress while living in the decaying mansion. After adopting a young girl, Estella, Catherine ages into the cynical spinster depicted in Great Expectations. Frame offers a convincing recreation of the iconic Dickens character, but his tale suffers from centering on such an unappealing protagonist.
