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conversations.value: What is a description for a book titled Jack Maggs about Maggs, Dickens's, Lucinda</a with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction?
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conversations.value: As a novelist, the author is hardly a stranger to the 19th century: his <a href="/exec/obidos/ISBN=0679777504/${0}">Oscar and Lucinda</a> was a veritable treasure-trove of Victoriana. In this novel, however, the author has set himself an even more complicated task--reimagining not only a vanished era but one of that era's masterpieces. Jack Maggs is a variation on <a href="/exec/obidos/ISBN=0385487215/${0}">Great Expectations</a> , in which Dickens's tale is told from the viewpoint of Australian convict Abel Magwitch. The names, it's true, have been tinkered with, but the book's literary paternity is unmistakable. So, too, is the postcolonial spin that the author puts on Dickens's material: this time around, the prodigal Maggs is perceived less as an invading alien than a righteous (if not particularly welcome) refugee.
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conversations.value: What is a plot for a book about Maggs, Dickens's, Lucinda</a?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Jack Maggs: Set in 19th century London, Jack Maggs is a reworking of the Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations.\nThe 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.\nMaggs 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.\nHe 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.\nOates, 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.
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conversations.value: Reverse the sentences.
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conversations.value: \nOates, 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..\nHe 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.\nMaggs 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.\nThe 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.Jack Maggs: Set in 19th century London, Jack Maggs is a reworking of the Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is the first five paragraphs for this book? End with the sentence ' When she looked up her glance was not towards the other women but in the direction of the handsome marble fireplace and, above it, a rather troubling engraving which depicted Napoleon's army in grotesque and bloody disarray.'.
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conversations.value: Jack Maggs
  The day was clear and fine, although it was perhaps too hot for such a heavy velvet dress, or too warm to wear such a dress and walk so fast. In any case, the plump young woman finally arrived in the Haymarket very red in the face and out of breath, and allowed herself to be charged a penny for a glass of water by the owner of the coffee stand.
  From the coffee stand to Cecil Street is no more than two hundred yards, yet Mary stopped twice more for directions before she came to that corner where the convict had stood on his first night back in London. From this point onwards their paths were so close that she must, from time to time, have brought her stout little heel down on the same spot of pavement where 's hessian boot had trod. As for attaining her destination, she was more successful than her precursor, for she not only got through the gate of 4 Cecil Street but to the brass knocker on its door.
  Her knock was answered almost immediately, and Mary was confused to discover that the person who stood before her appeared to be both respectable and friendly.
  The young woman ushered her into a small room, decorated rather excessively with lace and flounces, and an almost violent looking wallpaper. There was a single window, large and arched, which was covered with two layers of white muslin. There was very little light from that source, but there were various lamps burning, and several ornate mirrors, and it was, as a result, a bright and determinedly happy little room. Three women were already seated here, though none looked up when Mary Oates entered. This collective expression of shame went hard against the intention of the decorations, emphasizing the dishonour the latter were presumably intended to disguise.
  Mary Oates sat in the chair she was offered and accepted a cup of tea. It was very good tea and Mary sipped it carefully. When she looked up her glance was not towards the other women but in the direction of the handsome marble fireplace and, above it, a rather troubling engraving which depicted Napoleon's army in grotesque and bloody disarray.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is two more paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: When this last blaze had died away, the grate was filled with mourning: all those lines of gorgeous copperplate had become sheets of black crêpe which he now struck at with a poker. Whether they were struck in anger or merely from a desire to make them burn more efficiently, she could not tell; but if the latter, this intention was soon thwarted by the wind, which once again blew fiercely down the chimney and this time carried the black and broken paper out into the room. The men leapt back, coughing and waving their hands. The burnt papers rose, like black moths, as high as the ceiling.
  While the storm had long since abated, the windows were heavily curtained and so, although it was only nine o'clock, the house was very dark.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Swap the first and the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: While the storm had long since abated, the windows were heavily curtained and so, although it was only nine o'clock, the house was very dark. Whether they were struck in anger or merely from a desire to make them burn more efficiently, she could not tell; but if the latter, this intention was soon thwarted by the wind, which once again blew fiercely down the chimney and this time carried the black and broken paper out into the room. The men leapt back, coughing and waving their hands. The burnt papers rose, like black moths, as high as the ceiling.When this last blaze had died away, the grate was filled with mourning: all those lines of gorgeous copperplate had become sheets of black crêpe which he now struck at with a poker.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is the last four paragraphs?
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conversations.value: It was who had done this, and in his grief Tobias began to heap up all his blame upon him. It was now, on the seventh of May, in the darkest night of his life, that began to take the form the world would later know. This was, of course, a fiction, and so it may not matter that Tobias never witnessed the final act of the real convict's search: never observed Henry Phipps raise that pistol with his trembling hand, never heard the deafening explosion, nor smelled the dark and murderous scent of gunpowder.
  Dick Maggs was eleven years of age when Jack returned from England. He had twice been up before the magistrate, and little John, who was four years younger, had the same hard belligerent face, the same dark and needful eyes. It was not an easy role for Mercy Larkin, yet she applied herself to being their mother with a passion. She who had always been so impatient of the "rules" now became a disciplinarian. She brushed their hair and wiped their faces. She walked with them to school and saw they stayed there. It was she who moved the family away from the bad influence of Sydney. And in the new town of Wingham where they shortly settled she not only civilized these first two children, but very quickly gave birth to five further members of "That Race."
  The Maggs family were known to be both clannish and hospitable, at once civic-minded and capable of acts of picturesque irresponsibility, and it is only natural that they left many stories scattered in their wake. Yet amongst the succeeding generations of Maggs who still live on those fertile river flats, it is Mercy who is now remembered best, not only for the story of how she lost her wedding finger, not only for the grand mansion on Supper Creek Road whose construction she so pugnaciously oversaw and whose servants she so meticulously supervised, but also for the very particular library she collected in her middle age.
  The Mitchell's librarian has noted on each index card the "v. rough excision" of that page which reads: