Great Expectations the 1820s and 1830s, presents the flashy elegance and aesthetic frivolities found in high society. In some respects, Dickens conceived "Great Expectations" as an anti silver fork novel, attacking Charles Lever's novel "A Day's Ride", publication of which began January 1860, in "Household Words". This can be seen in the way that Dickens satirises the pretensions and morals of Miss Havisham and her sycophants, including the Pockets (except Matthew), and Uncle Pumblechook. Though "Great Expectations" is not obviously a historical novel Dickens does emphasise differences between the time that the novel is set (c. 1812–46) and when it was written
Mary Dickens to have embarrassed or angered her family, who largely cut themselves off from her. Much of her life after her father's death in 1870 remains unknown, but after leaving her aunt's she lived for a period with a clergyman and his wife, Mr and Mrs Hargreaves, in Manchester, a "scandal" which was kept a secret by her family. Later she lived alone in the country. Mary Dickens went on to write "My Father as I Recall Him" (1886), and a novel, "Cross Currents" (1890). On Mary's death her aunt, Georgina Hogarth, wrote to Connie Dickens, the widow of Edward Dickens: