I read Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.Pip is sponsored by an unknown patron and promoted from pauper to gentleman overnight. He rubs elbows with the elite, runs up debt on the expectations of coming into his property and is horrified when he discovers his patron is a convict he encountered in his youth. This convict escapes exile in Australia and travels to England for a friendly visit. He is captured by authorities, sentenced to death for returning to England and his fortune is forfeited to the Crown. Pip, made a pauper once more, resigns to life as a clerk, working hard all his remaining days to pay the debt he accrued from his frivolity.
Early in the novel, Pip encounters Miss Havisham, an aged lady whose affianced abandoned her on their wedding day. She wears her wedding gown everyday and the wedding cake rots in the corner of the room she never leaves. Forever, her clocks display the time she learned of her fiancé's flight. She arranges Pip's employ, introduces him to Estella and inspires him to rise above his class.
Dickens connects his characters with outlandish coincidence: Estella is Pip's obsession who spurns all his romantic advances and marries another. She is revealed to be the long lost daughter of the union between his convict patron and the servant of his attorney. Pip's patron's former partner in crime alerts the authorities to his presence in London and is revealed to be the man who purported to defraud the wealthy Miss Havisham out of her fortune and left her at the altar years earlier.
