Charles Dickens' Great Expectations

A six-year-old boy named Pip lives on the English marshes with his sister (Mrs. Joe Gargery) and his sister's husband (Mr. Joe Gargery). His sister is about as bossy and mean as most older sisters are—but his brother-in-law Joe is pretty much the best thing that's happened to Pip.

One Christmas Eve, Pip meets a scary, escaped convict in a churchyard. Pip steals food from Mrs. Joe so that the convict won't starve (and also so that the convict won't rip his guts out). Soon after, in apparently unrelated events, Pip gets asked to play at Miss Havisham's, the creepy lady who lives down the street. And we mean creepy: her mansion is covered in moss; she still wears the wedding dress she was wearing when she was jilted at the altar decades ago; and the whole place is crawling with bugs. It's like Beauty and the Beast, only without the singing tableware.

The only good thing about the mansion is Estella, Miss Havisham's adopted daughter. Estella is cold and snobby, but man is she pretty. Pip keeps getting invited back to play with her, and he develops quite the little crush on her. This crush turns into a big crush, and that big crush turns into full-blown, all-consuming L-O-V-E, even though there's no way that orphan Pip can ever have a chance with Estella, the adopted child of the richest lady in town.

When Pip is old enough to be put to work—you know, early teens or so—he starts an apprenticeship at his brother-in-law's smithy, thanks to Miss Havisham's financial support. You'd think he'd be thrilled (fire, swinging heavy things around), but he hates it: all he wants is to become a gentleman and marry Estella.

Then, surprise! He comes into fortune by means of a mysterious and undisclosed benefactor, says goodbye to his family, an...

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...arriving home, however, he finds that Joe and Biddy have just married, which is… a little weird, if you ask us. He says he's sorry he's been such a butthead, and then he moves to Cairo.

For eleven years, Pip works at Herbert's shipping company in Cairo, sending money back to Joe and Biddy. He finally returns to England, and then has one of two different fates, depending on whether you read the original ending or the revised ending:

Original ending: Pip is hanging out in London a few years later with Joe and Biddy's son, baby Pip, when he runs into Estella. She's had a hard life: her husband was abusive, and when he died she married a poor doctor.

Rewritten ending: Pip visits Miss Havisham's house once more. Estella is walking the grounds, being all single, beautiful, and sad about having thrown Pip's love away. Aw. They're going to be together forever, you guys!