Abridged Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Dickens is a master of his craft, but by God, you can tell he was paid by the word, can’t you? Never was a man so in love with a sentence, loaded with clauses, garnished with phrases and then, to add to the confusion, the main clause tagged on at the end. What 16 year old wouldn’t struggle?
I’ve abridged this great novel down to 90,000 words, from 163,000! So each chapter can be read in 20 minutes or less. That’s a 45% reduction in reading time, which buys you an 45% more time to teach your analysis!
Better than that, it actually makes for a more entertaining read. The conversation feels much more natural, and has some real pace. You can easily have your students taking parts.
As a bonus, I’ve placed in bold the most important quotation in each chapter. This means your students should find it much easier to make notes, and you can find it easier to decide on key passages to approach in your teaching.