Great Expectations

[Annna]

Is Charles Dickens NOT the sole author of of Great Expectations?

[adrenochrome]

The novel was unfinished when Dickens died. Several authors have penned different endings, mostly to suit television.

[Annna]

Thanks adrenochrome, I did not know that! Is there one version acknowledged as the official one?

[paddywak]

Great Expectations was written as a serial for the magazine "All The Year Round" from December 1860 to August 1861, by Dickens who did not die untill the 7th june 1870. The novel Dickens left unfinished was in fact the Mystery of Edwin Drood

[Annna]

Thank you for your replies. I have tried to by it from Waterstones on-line and the author is written as Dickens et al. I presume notes are the et al bit. I always presumed he was the sole author so was surprised that he might not be.

[saxy_jag]

When buying a classic novel, only the author appears on the cover as the author. If there are notes or a forward, then the author of those is usually announced as a by-line to the title.

I've just checked out the Wordsworth edition on Waterstones, and it looks as though the 'note-writers' are indeed included in the 'et al' catch all. Maybe Waterstones' database people need a few lessons in cataloguing.

[jno]

he rewrote the ending (to provide a happy one) at the suggestion of friends

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/mela ni/novel_19c/dickens/ending.html

But I don't think you could say anyone else wrote it or collaborated on it - al must have been the guy who wrote the notes.

[saxy_jag]

Everyone has to start somewhere.

Once, I didn't know, either.

[scaniavabis]

"I think that the author of the post & the first to respond to it should take time out to do their own research on certain issues. Its not difficult."

The attitude of some people on here never ceases to amaze. If you didn't have an answer to the post Steve.5, why did you bother with a reply? Perhaps YOU should have done some research on common courtesy!

[jno]

Steve, asking questions on AB is research. Research just means finding out things. There's no moral or ethical difference between looking it up in a library, looking it up on Google, asking a professor or asking AB.