即使在早期人類社會，以物易物的交易方式也總伴隨另一種非對稱性的經濟體制－禮物。法國社會學者牟斯(Marcel Mauss)認爲人類原始社會中的禮物不同於市場經濟的交換形式，具有獨特社會意涵與功能。現代學者佳寶(Jacques T. Godbout)則從牟斯的禮物觀點出發，探討人類原始社會與現代社會中禮物形式的差異。本文擬從佳寶對於禮物現象的觀察出發，探討面臨資本主義市場經濟的蓬勃發展，英國維多利亞時期的社會文化如何呈現禮物經濟邏輯。以狄更斯晚期的小說《錦繡前程》(Great Expectations)爲例，禮物邏輯則充分體現於與中產階級意識形態息息相關的紳士理念及城市、鄉村與家庭的衝突與調和之過程中。

In The World of the Gift, Jacques T. Godbout sees the gift as an embodiment of bonding value, whose symbolic significance survives the logic of the market. In the light of Godbout's observation, the present paper aims to examine how it is possible to claim generosity in the modern world-a world splintered by exchange value and bonding value. Charles Dickens's Great Expectations (1862) serves this purpose well because the world of Great Expectations is one in transition, witnessing the rise of capitalism and the decline of landed gentry. Thus said, studying Dickens's Great Expectations as a literary manifestation of the logic of the gift, this paper explores the accommodation of social values in the early Victorian England.