Jack Maggs

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Jack Maggs
First edition (Australia)
Author	Peter Carey
Country	Australia
Language	English
Genre	Parallel Novel
Publisher	UQP (Australia) Faber & Faber (UK) Knopf (US)
Publication date	1997 (Australia & UK) 1998 (US)
Media type	Print (Hardback)
Pages	392 pp
ISBN	0-7022-2952-0
OCLC	37500556
Dewey Decimal	823 21
LC Class	PR9619.3.C36 J33 1997

Jack Maggs (1997) is a novel by Peter Carey.

Plot summary

Set in 19th century London, Jack Maggs is a reworking of the Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations. The story centres around Jack Maggs (the equivalent of Magwitch) and his quest to meet his 'son' Henry Phipps (the equivalent of Pip), who has mysteriously disappeared, having closed up his house and dismissed his household.

Maggs becomes involved as a servant in the household of Phipps's neighbour, Percy Buckle, as he attempts to wait out Phipps or find him in the streets of London. He eventually cuts a deal with the young and broke up and coming novelist Tobias Oates (a thinly disguised Charles Dickens) that he hopes will lead him to Phipps. Oates, however, has other plans, as he finds in Maggs a character from whom to draw much needed inspiration for a forthcoming novel which he desperately needs to produce.

References

Awards and nominations

1998 Miles Franklin Award, winner
1998 Commonwealth Writers Prize, South-East Asia and South Pacific Region, Best Book, winner
1998 Commonwealth Writers Prize, Overall Best Book Award, winner
1997 The Age Book of the Year Fiction Prize, winner

Awards and achievements
Preceded by The Glade within the Grove	Miles Franklin Award recipient 1998	Succeeded by Eucalyptus

v t e Works by Peter Carey

Novels	Bliss (1981) Illywhacker (1985) Oscar and Lucinda (1988) The Tax Inspector (1991) The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith (1994) Jack Maggs (1997) True History of the Kelly Gang (2000) My Life as a Fake (2003) Theft: A Love Story (2006) His Illegal Self (2008) Parrot and Olivier in America (2010) The Chemistry of Tears (2012)

Short story collections	The Fat Man in History (1974) War Crimes (1979) The Fat Man in History and Other Stories (1980) Exotic Pleasures (1990) Collected Stories (1994)

Juvenile fiction	The Big Bazoohley (1995)

Non-fiction	A Letter to Our Son (1994) 30 Days in Sydney (2001) Letter from New York (2001) Wrong about Japan (2004)

Screenplays	Bliss (1985, with Ray Lawrence) Until the End of the World (1991, with Wim Wenders)

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