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Bleak House
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Bleak House is the ninth novel by Charles Dickens, published in twenty monthly installments between March 1852 and September 1853. It is held to be one of Dickens's finest and most complete novels, containing one of the most vast, complex and engaging arrays of minor characters and sub-plots in his entire canon. Dickens tells all of these both through the narrative of the novel's heroine, Esther Summerson, and as an omniscient narrator.
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Bleak House is the ninth novel by Charles Dickens, published in twenty monthly installments between March 1852 and September 1853. It is held to be one of Dickens's finest and most complete novels, containing one of the most vast, complex and engaging arrays of minor characters and sub-plots in his entire canon. Dickens tells all of these both through the narrative of the novel's heroine, Esther Summerson, and as an omniscient narrator. Memorable characters include the menacing lawyer Tulkinghorn, the friendly but depressive John Jarndyce and the childish Harold Skimpole.
The plot concerns a long-running legal dispute (Jarndyce and Jarndyce) which has far-reaching consequences for all involved and involves a convoluted will, monies and land surrounding the Manor of Marr in South Yorkshire. Dickens's assault on the flaws of the British judiciary system is based in part on his own experiences as a law clerk. His harsh characterisation of the slow, arcane Chancery law process gave voice to widespread frustration with the system, and is often thought of as having helped to set the stage for its eventual reform in the 1870s. In fact, Dickens was writing just as Chancery was reforming itself, with the Six Clerks and Masters mentioned in chapter one abolished in 1842 and 1852 respectively: the need for further reform was being widely . This raises the point as to when Bleak House is actually set. Technically it must be before 1842, and at least some of his readers at the time would have been aware of this. However, there is some question as to whether this timeframe is consistent with some of the themes of the novel.
Synopsis
Sir Leicester Dedlock and Lady Honoria Dedlock (his junior by more than twenty years) live at the estate of Chesney Wold. Unknown to Sir Leicester, Lady Dedlock was involved with a lover, Captain Hawdon, before her marriage with Sir Leicester the fruit of their union is Esther Summerson. Lady Dedlock, believing Esther to be dead, lives out the remainder of her days 'bored to death' as a fashionable lady of the world.
Esther is raised by Miss Barbary (Lady Dedlock's spartan sister) who instills a sense of worthlessness into the child that Esther will battle throughout the entire novel. When Miss Barbary dies John Jarndyce becomes Esther's guardian, and after she attends school in Reading for six years she goes to live with him at Bleak House, along with his other two wards, Richard Carstone and Ada Clare.
Esther soon befriends both the wards, who are cousins and share a similar interest with Jarndyce in the affairs of the long-running and endlessly tangled case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. Richard and Ada soon fall in love with each other, but though Mr. Jarndyce does not oppose the match, he does stipulate that Richard (who suffers from inconstancy of character) must first choose a profession.
Meanwhile, Lady Dedlock, while listening to her solicitor, the nefarious Tulkinghorn, recognizes the handwriting on a copied affidavit as that of her long lost lover, Capt. Hawdon. She alerts the ever watchful Tulkinghorn to her interest in it by asking if he knows the hand. Tulkinghorn admits that he does not, but he then pursues the matter in London and discovers that the copier is a pauper called "Nemo" and that he has recently died. The only person to identify him is a street-sweeper named Jo.
Lady Dedlock takes the time to investigate on her own while disguised as her French maid, Hortense. She pays Jo to take her to Nemo's grave. Tulkinghorn begins to watch Lady Dedlock's every move, even enlisting the aid of her maid, who herself detests Lady Dedlock.
Esther happens to meet her mother unwittingly at a church service and actually has a conversation with her afterwards at Chesney Wold. Later Lady Dedlock realizes her child is not dead, and is, in fact, Esther. She waits to confront Esther with this knowledge until after Esther has survived a bout with an unidentified disease, which she contracted from the infected Jo (whom she tried to nurse). Though they are happy at being reunited, Lady Dedlock tells Esther that they must never recognize their connection again.
Meanwhile, Esther, whose face is now scarred by the disease, ruining her beauty, returns to Bleak House where she finds that Richard, in wasting all his resources on trying to push Jarndyce and Jarndyce to a conclusion (in his and Ada's favor) has lost all of his money and his health in the process. She also discovers that he and Ada have become secretly married. Esther experiences her own romance when Dr. Woodcourt, who knew her before her illness, returns from his mission and continues to seek her company despite her disfigurement. Unfortunately, Esther has already accepted the proposal of her guardian, John Jarndyce, to become his wife.
Hortense and Tulkinghorn, after much snooping, discover the truth about Lady Dedlock's past. Tulkinghorn dismisses Hortense's help and, feeling ill-used by both Lady Dedlock and Tulkinghorn, Hortense shoots and kills Tulkinghorn, and seeks to frame Lady Dedlock for his murder.
At this point Inspector Bucket is called in to investigate the matter. He suspects Lady Dedlock, even after an arrest of George Rouncewell (the only other person known to be with Tulkinghorn on the night of the murder). Sir Leicester suffers a stroke due to the stress of the investigation of his wife and the revelation of her affair with Hawdon, but he forgives her. Lady Dedlock, in deep remorse, leaves the house and wanders for several hours in the inclement weather. Tragically, Bucket has cleared her name before this by the discovery of Hortense's guilt. Esther and Bucket find Lady Dedlock dead outside the cemetery where Hawdon (Esther's father) is buried.
The case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce is at last concluded, when the disputed estate has been completely absorbed by the legal fees accrued in the case. Richard, after hearing this, soon dies, leaving Ada alone with their child, a boy whom she names Richard. Jarndyce takes in Ada and the child and, realizing that Esther is in love with Woodcourt, releases her from their engagement and gives her a house in Yorkshire. Esther and Woodcourt marry and live there happily. In time they have two daughters.
There are also many subplots included in the novel that deal primarily with the minor characters and their diverse ties to the main plot. One of these subplots is the hard life and happy though difficult marriage of Caddy Jellyby and Prince Turveydrop. Another involves George Rouncewell's rediscovery of his family at Chesney Wold and his reunion with his mother and brother.
Characters in Bleak House
As usual, Dickens drew upon many real people and places but imaginatively transformed them in his novel. The "telescopic philanthropist" Mrs Jellyby, who pursues distant projects at the expense of her duty to her own family, is a criticism of women activists like Caroline Chisholm. The "childlike" but ultimately amoral character Harold Skimpole is commonly regarded as a portrait of Leigh Hunt; but Dickens himself denied this, calling Hunt "the very soul of truth and honour"; G. K. Chesterton suggested that Dickens "may never once have had the unfriendly thought, 'Suppose Hunt behaved like a rascal!'; he may have only had the fanciful thought, 'Suppose a rascal behaved like Hunt!'". Mr Jarndyce's friend Mr Boythorn is based on the writer Walter Savage Landor. The novel also includes one of the first detectives in English fiction, Mr Bucket. This character is probably based on Inspector Charles Frederick Field of the then-recently formed Detective Department at Scotland Yard. Dickens wrote several journalistic pieces about the Inspector and the work of the detectives in Household Words.
Major characters
- Esther Summerson — The heroine and narrator of part of the story, raised as an orphan because the identity of her parents is unknown. At first, it seems probable that her guardian, John Jarndyce, is her father because he provides for her support. This, however, he disavows shortly after she comes to live under his roof. The discovery of her true identity provides for much of the drama in the book: it is discovered that she is the illegitimate daughter of Lady Dedlock and Nemo (Captain Hawdon).
- Richard Carstone — a ward of court in Jarndyce and Jarndyce. A fairly simple but inconstant character who falls under the malign spell of the Jarndyce and Jarndyce case. At the end of the book, just after Jarndyce and Jarndyce is finally settled, he dies, tormented by the fact that all of the proceeds of the case have been devoured by lawyers' fees.
- Ada Clare — a ward of court in Jarndyce and Jarndyce. A good girl who falls in love with Richard Carstone. They later marry in secret.
- John Jarndyce — an unwilling party in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, guardian of Richard, Ada, and Esther, and owner of Bleak House. Vladimir Nabokov called him "the best and kindest man ever to appear in a novel". He helps most of the other characters out of disinterested goodness. He falls in love with Esther and wishes to marry her, but gives her up because she loves Doctor Woodcourt.
- Harold Skimpole — a friend of Jarndyce and "in the habit of sponging his friends" (Nuttall); supposedly based on Leigh Hunt (but see above). A thoroughly despicable character, amoral and without remorse.
- Lawrence Boythorn — An old friend of John Jarndyce; a former soldier, who always speaks in superlatives; very loud and harsh, but goodhearted. A neighbour of Sir Leicester Dedlock; based on Walter Savage Landor.
- Sir Leicester Dedlock — a crusty baronet, very much older than his wife.
- Honoria, Lady Dedlock — the haughty mistress of Chesney Wold. Her past drives much of the plot as it turns out she had an affair with another man and gave birth to his child. She discovers the child's identity — it is Esther — and then has to fend off the manipulations of Mr Tulkinghorn. At the end, she dies, disgraced in her own mind, convinced that her aristocratic husband can never forgive her moral failings.
- Mr Tulkinghorn — the Dedlock family lawyer. A scheming, manipulative monster of a man. He learns of Lady Dedlock's past and tries to control her conduct, to preserve the reputation and good name of Sir Leicester. He is murdered, and so the last part of the book turns into an investigation, as several characters have good reason to want Tulkinghorn dead.
- Nemo — a law writer. A mysterious man who dies early in the story. He is later revealed to have been Captain Hawdon, an officer in the British Army under whom Mr George once served. He was the lover of Lady Dedlock and the father of Esther.
- Miss Flite — an elderly eccentric obsessed with Chancery. She is a party in a long-running Chancery case similar to Jarndyce and Jarndyce. She owns a large number of little birds which she says will be released "on the day of judgement".
- Mr William Guppy — a law clerk at the firm of Kenge and Carboy's. He becomes very taken with Esther and plays a role in unearthing her true past. He proposes marriage to Esther, then withdraws the offer, then re-proposes. Esther politely refuses both his proposals.
- Inspector Bucket — a detective. He is the key player in the murder investigation of Mr Tulkinghorn and does solve the case.
- Mr George — a former soldier. He is a trainer in the martial arts (swords and pistols mostly). Richard Carstone, before he joins the army, trains under him. We later learn that Mr George served under the command of "Nemo". He was the prime suspect in the death of Mr Tulkinghorn and was arrested. His true name is later found to be George Rouncewell, and he is the son of the Dedlocks' housekeeper.
- Caddy Jellyby — a friend of Esther who feels ashamed of her "lack of manners". After meeting Esther, she marries and has a baby.
- Krook — a rag and bottle merchant and collector of papers. He dies from a case of spontaneous human combustion, something that Dickens believed could, in fact, happen. Nemo and Miss Flite lived in rooms in his house. Ironically, amongst the stacks of papers obsessively hoarded by the illiterate Krook, is the key to resolving the case of Jarndyce vs Jarndyce.
- Jo — a young boy who tries to make a living as a crossing sweeper. He dies from a disease (pneumonia, a complication from an earlier bout with smallpox) which Esther also catches (and by which she is nearly killed).
- Allan Woodcourt — a physician. A kind, caring man who likes Esther. She in turn likes him a great deal but feels unable to respond to his overtures because of her prior commitment to John Jarndyce. All is resolved happily at the end and they marry.
- Grandfather Smallweed — a money lender. An evil man who enjoys inflicting emotional pain on other people. He drives Mr George into bankruptcy (by calling in debts).
Minor characters
- Mr Kenge — a lawyer of Kenge and Carboy's
- Mr Vholes — a lawyer who was introduced to Richard Carstone by Skimpole. He makes a great deal of money at Carstone's expense
- Mr Gridley — an involuntary party to a suit in Chancery (based on a real case, according to Dickens' preface)
- Mr Snagsby — the proprietor of a law-stationery business
- Mrs Snagsby — his wife
- Guster. — the Snagsbys' maidservant, prone to fits
- Neckett — a debt collector — called "Coavinses" by debtor Harold Skimpole
- Charley — Coavinses' daughter; hired by John Jarndyce to be a maid to Esther
- Tom — Coavinses' young son
- Emma — Coavinses' baby daughter
- Mrs Jellyby — Caddy's mother, a philanthropist with little regard to the notion of charity beginning at home
- Mr Jellyby — Mrs Jellyby's husband
- Peepy Jellyby — the Jellybys' young son
- Prince Turveydrop — a dancing master at his father's studio
- Old Mr Turveydrop — proprietor of a dancing studio and a master of Deportment
- Jenny — a brickmaker's wife
- Rosa — a favourite lady's maid of Lady Dedlock
- Hortense — lady's maid to Lady Dedlock (based on murderess Maria Manning)
- Mrs Rouncewell — housekeeper to the Dedlocks at Chesney Wold
- Mr Robert Rouncewell — son of Mrs Rouncewell and a prosperous ironmaster
- Watt Rouncewell — his son
- Volumnia — a Dedlock cousin
- Miss Barbary — Esther's godmother and severe guardian in childhood
- Mrs Rachel Chadband — a former servant of Miss Barbary
- Mr Chadband — an oleaginous preacher, husband of Mrs Chadband
- Mrs Smallweed — wife of Mr Smallweed senior and sister to Krook. She is in her second childhood
- Young Mr (Bartholemew) Smallweed — grandson of the senior Smallweeds and friend of Mr Guppy
- Judy Smallweed — granddaughter of the senior Smallweeds
- Tony Jobling — aka Mr Weevle — a friend of Mr Guppy
- Mrs Guppy — Mr Guppy's aged mother
- Phil Squod — Mr George's assistant
- Matthew Bagnet — military friend of Mr George and dealer in musical instruments
- Mrs Bagnet — wife of Matthew Bagnet
- Mrs Woodcourt — Allan Woodcourt's widowed mother
- Mrs Pardiggle — a woman who does "good works" for the poor, but cannot see that her efforts are rude and arrogant and do nothing at all to help. She inflicts her activities onto her five small sons, who are clearly rebellious.
Analysis and criticism
Much criticism about Bleak House centres around its unique narrative structure: it is told both by an unidentified, third-person narrator and a first-person narrator, Esther Summerson. The third-person narrator speaks in the present tense, ranging widely across geographic and social space (from the aristocratic Dedlock estate to the desperately poor Tom-All-Alone's in London), and gives full rein to Dickens's desire to satirize the English chancery systemthough this narrator's perceptiveness has limits, stopping at the outside to describe characters' appearances and behavior without any pretence of grasping or revealing their inner lives. Esther Summerson tells her own story in the past tense (like David in David Copperfield or Pip in Great Expectations), and her narrative voice is characterized by modesty, consciousness of her own limits, and willingness to disclose to us her own thoughts and feelings. These two narrative strands almost never intersect, but they do run in parallel. Many scholars regard this narrative structure as the most complex and brilliant that Dickens ever created.
Esther's portion of the narrative is an interesting case study of the Victorian ideal of feminine modesty. She introduces herself thus: "I have a great deal of difficulty in beginning to write my portion of these pages, for I know I am not clever" (chap. 3). This claim is almost immediately belied by the astute moral judgment and satiric observation that characterize her pages, and it remains unclear how much knowledge she withholds from her narration, or why someone who has chosen to relate the story of her life should be so coy about her own central place in it. In the same introductory chapter, she writes: "It seems so curious to me to be obliged to write all this about myself! As if this narrative were the narrative of MY life! But my little body will soon fall into the background now" (chap. 3). This does not turn out to be true.
For most readers and scholars, the central concern of Bleak House is its riveting and insistent indictment of the English chancery court system. Chancery or equity courts were the second half of the system of English justice, existing side-by-side with law courts. By the mid-nineteenth century, English law reformers had long criticized and mocked the delays of chancery litigation, and Dickens found the subject a tempting target. (He already had taken a shot at law-courts and that side of the legal profession in his 1837 novel The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club or The Pickwick Papers). The fame and critical success of Bleak House have led many readers and scholars to apply its indictment of Chancery to the entire legal system, and indeed it is the greatest indictment of law, lawyers, and the legal system in the English language. Scholars such as the English legal historian Sir William Holdsworth, in his 1928 series of lectures Charles Dickens as a Legal Historian published by Yale University Press, have made a plausible case for treating Dickens's novels, and Bleak House in particular, as primary sources illuminating the history of English law.
Dickens claimed in the preface to the volume edition of Bleak House (it was initially released in parts) that he had "purposely dwelt upon the romantic side of familiar things". And some remarkable things do happen: One character, Krook, smells of brimstone and eventually dies of spontaneous human combustion, attributed to his evil nature. Using spontaneous human combustion to dispose of Krook in the story was controversial. The nineteenth century saw the increasing triumph of the scientific world-view and of technology rooted in scientific advances. Scientific and technological research and discovery were regarded as among the highest forms of human endeavor. Thus, scientifically inclined writers, as well as medical doctors and scientists, rejected spontaneous human combustion as legend or superstition. When the installment of Bleak House containing Krook's demise appeared, the literary critic George Henry Lewes criticized Dickens, saying that he had perpetuated a vulgar and unscientific superstition. Dickens vigorously defended the reality of spontaneous human combustion and cited many documented cases, such as those of Mme. Millet of Rheims and of the Countess di Bandi, as well as his own memories of coroners' inquests that he had attended when he had been a journalist/reporter. In the preface of the book edition of Bleak House, Dickens wrote:
"I shall not abandon the facts until there shall have been a considerable Spontaneous Combustion of the testimony on which human occurrences are usually received."
George Gissing and G. K. Chesterton are among those literary critics and writers who consider Bleak House to be the best novel that Charles Dickens wrote. As Chesterton put it: "Bleak House is not certainly Dickens's best book; but perhaps it is his best novel." Harold Bloom in his book The Western Canon, also considers Bleak House to be Dickens's greatest novel. Also Daniel Burt, in his book "The Novel 100: A Ranking of the Greatest Novels of All Time," ranks Bleak House number 12.
Bleak House, which predates Wilkie Collins's 1868 novel The Moonstone (famous among other reasons for the introduction of the detective Sergeant Cuff) by a full fifteen years, has been cited as "the first novel in which a detective plays a significant role": "Forgery, drugs, murder, and blackmail run rampant until Inspector Bucket puts a stop to it."
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
In the silent film era, it was filmed in 1920 and 1922. A later version starred Sybil Thorndike as Lady Dedlock.
The BBC has produced three television adaptations of Bleak House. The first version was broadcast in eleven half-hour episodes in 1959; while the second, starring Diana Rigg and Denholm Elliott, was broadcast as an eight-part series in 1985; and the third was broadcast in fifteen episodes in 2005. This last version starred Gillian Anderson, Anna Maxwell Martin, and Charles Dance, among others. Both the 1985 version and the 2005 versions are available on DVD in the UK and the US.
The BBC also adapted the book for radio.
Original publication
Like most Dickens novels, Bleak House was published in 20 monthly instalments, each containing 32 pages of text and two illustrations by Phiz (the last two being published together as a double issue). Each cost one shilling, except for the last (double issue), which cost two shillings.
| Instalment | Date of publication | Chapters |
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| I | March 1852 | 14 |
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| II | April 1852 | 57 |
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| III | May 1852 | 810 |
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| IV | June 1852 | 1113 |
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| V | July 1852 | 1416 |
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| VI | August 1852 | 1719 |
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| VII | September 1852 | 2022 |
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| VIII | October 1852 | 2325 |
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| IX | November 1852 | 2629 |
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| X | December 1852 | 3032 |
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| XI | January 1853 | 3335 |
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| XII | February 1853 | 3638 |
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| XIII | March 1853 | 3942 |
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| XIV | April 1853 | 4346 |
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| XV | May 1853 | 4749 |
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| XVI | June 1853 | 5053 |
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| XVII | July 1853 | 5456 |
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| XVIII | August 1853 | 5759 |
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| XIXXX | September 1853 | 6067 |
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See also
External links
Online editions
- – complete book in HTML one page for each chapter.
- — HTML Searchable HTML version.
- — Easy to read HTML version.
- The complete English text.
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- Annotated On-line Resources for Bleak House
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