Free public-domain audiobook
Listen to Great Expectations as a free audiobook on iPhone
You can listen to Great Expectations by Charles Dickens as a free audiobook on your iPhone. Because the book is in the public domain, you can download a free EPUB edition and have it read aloud with natural on-device voices - privately, offline, and without buying an audiobook.
The orphan Pip is lifted from a blacksmith’s forge into the life of a gentleman by a secret benefactor, and learns what that money really costs. It opens with one of fiction’s great scenes - a convict rising from the marsh - and follows Pip’s self-deception with unusual tenderness. The first-person narration makes it a steady, intimate listen.
Why Great Expectations is free to listen to
Great Expectations was published in 1861 and is fully public domain. Free, well-proofed EPUB editions are easy to find.
Length: A full-length novel, 59 chapters.
How to listen to Great Expectations on iPhone
- Download a free public-domain EPUB of Great Expectations (Project Gutenberg and Standard Ebooks both offer one).
- Move the EPUB to your iPhone via AirDrop, iCloud Drive, email, or a direct download into Files.
- Open the EPUB in a reader app that reads text aloud, or use Apple's built-in Speak Screen to hear the open page.
- Choose a voice and press play. A reader that generates the voice on the device works offline, with nothing uploaded.
Questions & answers
Is Great Expectations a good Dickens novel for listening?
Great Expectations is one of Dickens’s best novels for listening because it is narrated by Pip in the first person, so a single steady voice carries the whole book. The chapters are a manageable length and the plot is more focused than his crowded comedies, which keeps it easy to follow by ear.
Which ending does the free version have?
Dickens wrote two endings for Great Expectations, and most public-domain EPUB editions print the revised, slightly more hopeful one he published. Some editions include the original in a note. Either way, the free text gives you the complete novel; the difference is only the final page.