Great Expectations sees Kathy Acker dismantle Dickens before rebuilding him into something confrontational, obscene, philosophical and startlingly original.

Borrowing freely from Great Expectations while folding in autobiography, pornography, dream logic and literary theft, Acker treats plagiarism not as an ethical problem but as a creative method, exposing how identity itself is assembled from inherited stories and borrowed language.

Published in 1982, the novel remains one of the clearest demonstrations of Acker's singular project: collapsing the boundaries between fiction and memoir, high literature and pulp, theory and desire. Beneath its transgressive surface is an intensely serious meditation on power, sexuality, authorship and the construction of the self. A landmark of postmodern literature and an essential work for readers of Burroughs, Ballard, Chris Kraus, Hélène Cixous and contemporary autofiction.

Grove Press paperback. Later printing of the 1982 edition. Clean throughout with light general shelf wear, a small crease and minor impressions to the front cover. A very good reading copy.