Abel Magwitch is a fictional character from Charles Dickens' 1861 novel, Great Expectations.

The novel is set in Kent and London in the early to mid-19th century and contains some of Dickens's most memorable scenes.

The novel begins with young Pip visiting the graves of his parents and brothers, where he is surprised by Magwitch: "a fearful man, all in coarse gray, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limped and shivered, and glared and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin."

Magwitch tricks the seven-year-old boy into believing that he has an accomplice who is a terrible young man who would tear out and eat Pip's heart and liver if Pip did not help them. Pip, terrified, steals a pork pie, brandy and a file from his house and brings them to Magwitch the next morning.

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