Literary WI: Dickens never changed the ending of Great Expectations

The Great Expectations ending was changed because it was unhappy from a romanticist perspective originally. While it was seen as a good idea back then it tends to be more divisive now. What would have happened had Dickens chosen not to change it. How would that affect the the development of literature or any other works of fiction?
 
Not to any appreciable degree.

It's not as if the changed ending was really unknown- academics and the literary world in general have been aware of it sine 1870 when it was included in Dickens' biography.

The Canonical ending from the single volume edition said:
“I little thought”, said Estella, ‘that I should take leave of you in taking leave of this spot. I am very glad to do so.”

“Glad to part again, Estella? To me, parting is a painful thing. To me, the remembrance of our last parting has been ever mournful and painful.”

“But you said to me, “ returned Estella, very earnestly. “‘God bless you, God forgive you!’ And if you could say that to me then, you will not hesitate to say that to me now – now, when suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape. Be as considerate and good to me as you were, and tell me we are friends.”

We are friends,” said I, rising and bending over her, as she rose from the bench

“And will continue friends apart, ” said Estella.

I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.

The original version of the last sentence from the serialised novel is actually slightly different:

I saw the shadow of no parting from her

This is Dicken's original manuscript ending

The original ending said:
I was in England again – in London, and walking along Piccadilly with little Pip – when a servant came running after me to ask would I step back to a lady in a carriage who wished to speak to me. It was a little pony carriage, which the lady was driving; and the lady and I looked sadly enough on one another.

“I am greatly changed, I know, but I thought you would like to shake hands with Estella too, Pip. Lift up that pretty child and let me kiss it!” (She supposed the child, I think, to be my child.)

I was very glad afterwards to have had the interview; for, in her face and in her voice, and in her touch, she gave me the assurance, that suffering had been stronger than Miss Havisham’s teaching, and had given her a heart to understand what my heart used to be.

From a wider literary perspective, swapping one for the other isn't going to make much of a difference to the development of literature in general. Everyone in the field was aware of the various revisions in any case. The themes and concerns of the novel remain the same in each case- the canonical ending merely adds some uncertainty as to what Pip and Estella's actual fate will be
 
Last edited:
Top