Great Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens. It depicts the growth and personal development of an orphan named Pip. On Christmas Eve, around 1812, Pip, an orphan of about six, encounters an escaped convict in the village churchyard while visiting his mother's, father's and younger brothers' graves. The convict scares Pip into stealing food for him, and a file to grind away his shackles, from the home he shares with his older sister and her husband Joe Gargery, a blacksmith. The next day, so