Vexiekelly - 𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐂𝐚𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐭

Estella

Along with Miss Havisham, Estella is one of the great gothic characters and probably Dickens’ most complex and well-wrought female character…

“Believe this: when she first came to me, I meant to save her from misery like my own. At first I meant no more…But as she grew and promised to be very beautiful, I gradually did worse, and with my praises, and with my jewels, and with my teachings, and with this figure of myself always before her, a warning to back and point my lessons, I stole her heart away and put ice in its place”

- Miss Havisham

Jane Wyatt, 1934

“The lady whom I had never seen before, lifted up her eyes and looked archly at me, and then I saw that the eyes were Estella’s eyes. But she was so much changed, was so much more beautiful, so much more womanly, in all things winning admiration had made such wonderful advance, that I seemed to have made none.”

- Pip

Valerie Hobson, 1946

“‘Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures,’ replied Estella, with a glance towards him, 'hover about a lighted candle. Can the candle help it?’”

Gwyneth Paltrow, 1998

“Love her, love her, love her! If she favours you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces,—and as it gets older and stronger it will tear deeper,—love her, love her, love her!” - Miss Havisham

Justine Waddell, 1999

“I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.”

- Pip

Vanessa Kirby, 2011

“I never had one hour’s happiness in her society, and yet my mind all round the four-and-twenty hours was harping on the happiness of having her with me unto death.”

- Pip

Holliday Grainger, 2012

A cold silvery mist had veiled the afternoon, and the moon was not yet up to scatter it. But, the stars were shining beyond the mist, and the moon was coming, and the evening was not dark. I could trace out where every part of the old house had been, and where the brewery had been, and where the gates, and where the casks. I had done so, and was looking along the desolate garden walk, when I beheld a solitary figure in it.

The figure showed itself aware of me, as I advanced. It had been moving towards me, but it stood still. As I drew nearer, I saw it to be the figure of a woman. As I drew nearer yet, it was about to turn away, when it stopped, and let me come up with it. Then, it faltered, as if much surprised, and uttered my name, and I cried out,—

“Estella!”

Ruri Hanaka as Estella in Rays of Dawn (Great Expectations)

“To Make a Long Story Short”

Stephen Andrade’s wonderful pulp-style tribute to Clue (1985)

Prints and original artwork available at nineteeneightyeight.com or through @galleries1988 on Instagram :)

ESTELLA HAVISHAM

Estella Havisham (best known in literature simply as Estella) is a significant character in the famous Charles Dickens novel, Great Expectations. Like the protagonist, Pip, Estella is introduced as an orphan, but where Pip was raised by his sister and her husband to become a blacksmith, Estella was adopted and raised by the wealthy and eccentric Miss Havisham to become a lady - but with a devious mission.

As above played by Vanessa Kirby.

As played by Yorkshire actress Jean Simmons in 1946.

An also as played by Holliday Grainger, above an below…

Jean Simmons as Young Estella

Great Expectations (1946)