Dickens felt "Great Expectations" was his best work, calling it "a very fine idea," and was very sensitive to compliments from his friends: "Bulwer, who has been, as I think you know, extraordinarily taken by the book." The cast includes the capricious Miss Havisham, the cold and beautiful Estella, the kind and generous blacksmith Joe, the dry and sycophantic Uncle Pumblechook, and the eloquent and wise Herbert Pocket. Throughout the narrative, typical Dickensian themes emerge: wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and the eventual triumph of good over evil.