I think just about everyone has read “Great Expectations”. I had to read it in 10th grade. Actually thought it was really good. My Daughter had to read it and absolutely loved it.
Now I bet my grand children will have to read it in a couple of years.
That and "A Christmas Carol" I actually like. Although part of that is the excellent film with Alasdair Sim - they basically quote scads from the book.
I never had any familiarity with anything Dickens except for “A Christmas Carol” well into my forties.
Then I read “A Tale of Two Cities”, and was struck by how much I enjoyed it. I immediately went out and read “David Copperfield”, “Great Expectations”, “Bleak House”, “Nicholas Nickleby” and “Oliver Twist”.
Heh, I understood why people thought he was such a great writer. The only problem was, the more of him I read, the more alike all the books sound, in much the same way all of Tom Clancy’s books begin to meld into one another.