Publisher's Synopsis
My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue couldmake of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came tobe called Pip.I give Pirrip as my father's family name, on the authority of his tombstone and my sister, -Mrs.Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As I never saw my father or my mother, and never sawany likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the days of photographs), my firstfancies regarding what they were like were unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shapeof the letters on my father's, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curlyblack hair. From the character and turn of the inscription, "Also Georgiana Wife of the Above," I drew achildish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly. To five little stone lozenges, each abouta foot and a half long, which were arranged in a neat row beside their grave, and were sacred to thememory of five little brothers of mine, -who gave up trying to get a living, exceedingly early in thatuniversal struggle, -I am indebted for a belief I religiously entertained that they had all been bornon their backs with their hands in their trousers-pockets, and had never taken them out in this stateof existence.
