Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

VOLUME ONE

Chapter 1

My father's family name being Pirrip, and my christian name being Philip,

my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more

explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called

Pip.

I gave Pirrip as my father's family name, on the authority of his tombstone

and my sister - Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As I never

saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of

them (for their days were long before the days of photographs), my

first fancies regarding what they were like, were unreasonably derived

from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father's, gave

me an idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair.

From the character and turn of the inscription, 'Also Georgiana Wife

of the Above,' I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled

and sickly. To five little stone lozenges, each about a foot and a half

long, which we arranged in a neat row beside their grave, and were

scared to the memory of five little brothers of mine - who gave up

trying to get a living, exceedingly early in that universal struggle - I

am indebted for a belief I religiously entertained that they had all

been born on their backs with their hands in their trouser-pockets,

and had never taken them out in this state of existence."