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Bleak House (Penguin Classics S.) Rev e. Edition, Kindle Edition
'Perhaps his best novel ... when Dickens wrote Bleak House he had grown up' G. K. Chesterton
As the interminable case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce grinds its way through the Court of Chancery, it draws together a disparate group of people: Ada Clare and Richard Carstone, whose inheritance is gradually being devoured by legal costs; Esther Summerson, a ward of court; the menacing lawyer Tulkinghorn; the determined sleuth Inspector Bucket; and even Jo, a destitute crossing-sweeper. A savage indictment of a society that is rotten to the core, Bleak House is one of Dickens's most ambitious novels, with a range that extends from the drawing-rooms of the aristocracy to the London slums.
Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Nicola Bradbury with a Preface by Terry Eagleton
- ISBN-13978-0141439723
- EditionRev e.
- PublisherPenguin
- Publication dateMarch 27, 2003
- LanguageEnglish
- File size68639 KB
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“When Dickens wrote Bleak House he had grown up.” ―G.K. Chesterton
“The power of [Dickens] is so amazing that the reader at once becomes his captive.” ―William Makepeace Thackeray
From the Inside Flap
The text of this Modern Library Paperback Classic was set from the first single-volume edition, published by Bradbury & Evans in 1853, and reproduces thirty-nine of H. K. Browne?s original illustrations for the book.
From the Back Cover
After surviving fourteen long years with her horrible aunt, and nothing but a doll and an old handkerchief for company, Esther Summerson’s life is finally looking a little brighter. She’s going to school and making friends―real friends!
The only thing Esther’s missing now is a mother. But long-lost parents don’t just turn up out of the blue. Do they?
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
In Chancery
London. Michaelmas Term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln's Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets, as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus,forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn-hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snow-flakes-gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another's umbrellas, in a general infection of ill-temper, and losing their foot-hold at street corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if the day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest.
Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping, and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards, and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales
of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little 'prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon, and hanging in the misty clouds.
Gas looming through the fog in divers places in the streets, much as the sun may, from the spongey fields, be seen to loom by husbandman and ploughboy. Most of the shops lighted two hours before their time-as the gas seems to know, for it has a haggard and unwilling look.
The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the muddy streets are muddiest, near that leaden-headed old obstruction, appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old corporation: Temple Bar. And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln's Inn Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery.
Never can there come fog too thick, never can there come mud and mire too deep, to assort with the groping and floundering condition which this High Court of Chancery, most pestilent of hoary sinners, holds, this day, in the sight of heaven and earth.
On such an afternoon, if ever, the Lord High Chancellor ought to be sitting here-as here he is-with a foggy glory round his head, softly fenced in with crimson cloth and curtains, addressed by a large advocate with great whiskers, a little voice, and an interminable brief, and outwardly directing his contemplation to the lantern in the roof, where he can see nothing but fog. On such an afternoon, some score of members of the High Court of Chancery bar ought to be-as here they are-mistily engaged in one of the ten thousand stages of an endless cause, tripping one another up on slippery precedents, groping knee-deep in technicalities, running their goat-hair and horse-hair warded heads against walls of words, and making a pretence of equity with serious faces, as players might. On such an afternoon, the various solicitors in the cause, some two or three of whom have inherited it from their fathers, who made a fortune by it, ought to be-as are they not?-ranged in a line, in a long matted well (but you might look in vain for Truth at the bottom of it), between the registrar's red table and the silk gowns, with bills, cross-bills, answers, rejoinders, injunctions, affidavits, issues, references to masters, masters' reports, mountains of costly nonsense, piled before them. Well may the court be dim, with wasting candles here and there; well may the fog hang heavy in it, as if it would never get out; well may the stained glass windows lose their color, and admit no light of day into the place; well may the uninitiated from the streets, who peep in through the glass panes in the door, be deterred from entrance by its owlish aspect, and by the drawl languidly echoing to the roof from the padded dais where the Lord High Chancellor looks into the lantern that has no light in it, and where the attendant wigs are all stuck in a fog-bank! This is the Court of Chancery; which has its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire; which has its worn-out lunatic in every madhouse, and its dead in every churchyard; which has its ruined suitor, with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress, borrowing and begging through the round of every man's acquaintance; which gives to monied might the means abundantly of wearying out the right; which so exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope; so overthrows the brain and breaks the heart; that there is not an honorable man among its practitioners who would not give-who does not often give-the warning, "Suffer any wrong that can be done you, rather than come here!"
Who happen to be in the Lord Chancellor's court this murky afternoon besides the Lord Chancellor, the counsel in the cause, two or three counsel who are never in any cause, and the well of solicitors before mentioned? There is the registrar below the Judge, in wig and gown; and there are two or three maces, or petty-bags, or privy-purses, or whatever they may be, in legal court suits. These are all yawning; for no crumb of amusement ever falls from Jarndyce and Jarndyce (the cause in hand), which was squeezed dry years upon years ago. The short-hand writers, the reporters of the court, and the reporters of the newspapers, invariably decamp with the rest of the regulars when Jarndyce and Jarndyce comes on. Their places are a blank. Standing on a seat at the side of the hall, the better to peer into the curtained sanctuary, is a little mad old woman in a squeezed bonnet, who is always in court, from its sitting to its rising, and always expecting some incomprehensible judgment to be given in her favor. Some say she really is, or was, a party to a suit; but no one knows for certain, because no one cares. She carries some small litter in a reti-cule which she calls her documents; principally consisting of paper matches and dry lavender. A sallow prisoner has come up, in custody, for the half-dozenth time, to make a personal application "to purge himself of his contempt;" which, being a solitary surviving executor who has fallen into a state of conglomeration about accounts of which it is not pretended that he had ever any knowledge, he is not at all likely ever to do. In the meantime his prospects in life are ended. Another ruined suitor, who periodically appears from Shropshire, and breaks out into efforts to address the Chancellor at the close of the day's business, and who can by no means be made to understand that the Chancellor is legally ignorant of his existence after making it desolate for a quarter of a century, plants himself in a good place and keeps an eye on the Judge, ready to call out "My lord!" in a voice of sonorous complaint, on the instant of his rising. A few lawyers' clerks and others who know this suitor by sight, linger, on the chance of his furnishing some fun, and enlivening the dismal weather a little.
Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. This scarecrow of a suit has, in course of time, become so complicated, that no man alive knows what it means. The parties to it understand it least; but it has been observed that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five minutes, without coming to a total disagreement as to all the premises. Innumerable children have been born into the cause; innumerable young people have married into it; innumerable old people have died out of it. Scores of persons have deliriously found themselves made parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, without knowing how or why; whole families have inherited legendary hatreds with the suit. The little plaintiff or defendant, who was promised a new rocking-horse when Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be settled, has grown up, possessed himself of a real horse, and trotted away into the other world. Fair wards of court have faded into mothers and grandmothers; a long procession of Chancellors has come in and gone out; the legion of bills in the suit have been transformed into mere bills of mortality; there are not three Jarndyces left upon the earth perhaps, since old Tom Jarndyce in despair blew his brains out at a coffee-house in Chancery-lane; but Jarndyce and Jarndyce still drags its dreary length before the Court, perennially hopeless.
Jarndyce and Jarndyce has passed into a joke. That is the only good that has ever come of it. It has been death to many, but it is a joke in the profession. Every master in Chancery has had a reference out of it. Every Chancellor was "in it," for somebody or other, when he was counsel at the bar. Good things have been said about it by blue-nosed, bulbous-shoed old benchers, in select port-wine committee after dinner in hall. Articled clerks have been in the habit of fleshing their legal wit upon it. The last Lord Chancellor handled it neatly, when, correcting Mr. Blowers the eminent silk gown who said that such a thing might happen when the sky rained potatoes, he observed, "or when we get through Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Mr. Blowers;"-a pleasantry that particularly tickled the maces, bags, and purses.
How many people out of the suit, Jarndyce and Jarndyce has stretched forth its unwholesome hand to spoil and corrupt, would be a very wide question. From the master, upon whose impaling files reams of dusty warrants in Jarndyce and Jarndyce have grimly writhed into many shapes; down to the copying clerk in the Six Clerks' Office, who has copied his tens of thousands of Chancery-folio-pages under that eternal heading; no man's nature has been made the better by it. In trickery, evasion, procrastination, spoliation, botheration, under false pretences of all sorts, there are influences that can never come to good. The very solicitors' boys who have kept the wretched suitors at bay, by protesting time out of mind that Mr. Chizzle, Mizzle, or otherwise, was particularly engaged and had appointments until dinner, may have got an extra moral twist and shuffle into themselves out of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. The receiver in the cause has acquired a goodly sum of money by it, but has acquired too a distrust of his own mother, and a contempt for his own kind. Chizzle, Mizzle, and otherwise, have lapsed into a habit of vaguely promising themselves that they will look into that outstanding little matter, and see what can be done for Drizzle-who was not well used-when Jarndyce and Jarndyce shall be got out of the office. Shirking and sharking, in all their many varieties, have been sown broadcast by the ill-fated cause; and even those who have contemplated its history from the outermost circle of such evil, have been insensibly tempted into a loose way of letting bad things alone to take their own bad course, and a loose belief that if the world go wrong, it was, in some off-hand manner, never meant to go right.
Thus, in the midst of the mud and at the heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery.
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Product details
- ASIN : B002RI95C2
- Publisher : Penguin; Rev e. edition (March 27, 2003)
- Publication date : March 27, 2003
- Language : English
- File size : 68639 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 1047 pages
- Page numbers source ISBN : 0486812464
- Best Sellers Rank: #462,226 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #428 in Classic British & Irish Fiction
- #632 in Classic Historical Fiction
- #979 in Teen & Young Adult Classic Literature
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About the author
Charles Dickens was born in 1812 near Portsmouth where his father was a clerk in the navy pay office. The family moved to London in 1823, but their fortunes were severely impaired. Dickens was sent to work in a blacking-warehouse when his father was imprisoned for debt. Both experiences deeply affected the future novelist. In 1833 he began contributing stories to newspapers and magazines, and in 1836 started the serial publication of Pickwick Papers. Thereafter, Dickens published his major novels over the course of the next twenty years, from Nicholas Nickleby to Little Dorrit. He also edited the journals Household Words and All the Year Round. Dickens died in June 1870.
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The chapter-a-day approach is ideally suited to a novel that was published in serial form in a magazine. Very often, our discussions would last longer than the readings. My wife and I soon fell into a rhythm. I would close the book and try to summarize where the story had led us and guess where it might go. Then she would open hers and point out the numerous phrases she had underlined: something funny or touching, a picture-perfect description, or a strikingly unconventional use of language. Reading and discussing in this way, we learned from each other, but above all we learned from Dickens. This Penguin Classics edition transcribes the author's working notes at the end, and we can see him working out what to put where as his whole narrative takes shape. His ability to maintain the suspense of a mystery story from one episode to the next -- the essence of serial writing -- is amazing in itself. But to dash off each part in prose that, on almost every page, could be a candidate for inclusion in an anthology, that is simply mind-boggling.
The opening pages are famous, describing as they do a fog over London, a fog that is both literal and figurative, symbolizing the arcane obfuscation of the Court of Chancery, whose slow deliberations will suspend most of the characters in a kind of limbo. Technically, what is amazing is that the first page is entirely made up of sentence fragments: "Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping, and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights." And he ends the entire book on a sentence fragment too. "But I know that my dearest little pets are very pretty, and that my darling is very beautiful, and that my husband is very handsome, and that my guardian has the brightest and most benevolent face that ever was seen; and that they can very well do without much beauty in me -- even supposing---."
People accuse Dickens of sentiment, and there are certainly grounds for it in my second quotation above. But that is page 989 of the book, and the narrator, Esther Summerson, has surely earned the right to a little sentiment in finally arriving at her happy ending. Earlier in the novel, there are a number of death scenes, another notorious occasion for tear-jerking sentiment. But I am amazed by the variety with which Dickens treats them. One does indeed bring a tear to the eye; another comes after a burst of false euphoria, like the ending of LA TRAVIATA; another is set up with all the apparatus of a Gothic horror story; and yet another -- arguably the most important -- is delivered with a blow as shocking as the fall of the guillotine.
My quotations also illustrate the two narrative modes that Dickens alternates throughout the novel. One, in the present tense, uses a third-person narrator, looking down on the action sometimes literally from above. The other, written after the events, is the first-person narrative of Esther Summerson, an apparent orphan who is entering her teens as the book begins and remains throughout as the sweet and obliging helpmeet to anyone who shows her a shred of kindness. It is a wonderful contrast: the omniscient narrator versus the one who appears to know little or nothing. But there is a particular charm in Esther's voice, for her modest reluctance to imagine that other people may have a higher opinion of her than she has of herself does not stop the reader from looking beyond her gaze and seeing things as they really are. She must be one of the earliest unreliable narrators in fiction, and one of the most charming. Yet she is an acute observer of other people, and not merely kind but proactive and brave when the occasion calls for it.
The story of Esther and the mystery of her parentage is one of the two main strands of the plot. For it seems likely that, if the truth were known, a number of great fortunes would be altered. Dickens introduces what must be one of the first professional detectives in literature, Inspector Bucket; although a secondary character, he is shown in surprising depth and displays both forensic acumen and human understanding. There are also a number of lawyers and legal hangers-on who have their noses on a particular part of the scent, ranging from the patrician Mr. Tulkinghorn who keeps his eyes on everything like a big black spider in his web, through the upwardly-mobile clerk Guppy, to the despicable moneylender's agent Smallweed. The other strand is the Chancery suit itself, the interminable Jarndyce and Jarndyce, which promises to confer great wealth once the issue of the proper heirs has been determined. But it has already ground more than one hopeful beneficiary in its mill, and threatens to destroy all the others. John Jarndyce, the only one of that name we meet in the book, has wisely determined to stay aloof from the proceedings, and it is to his home in the country -- the far from bleak Bleak House -- that he brings the two teenage wards in the case, Ada Clare and Richard Carstone, along with Esther Summerson, whose connection is less clearly established. In the early chapters at least, Jarndyce's retreat a little way north of the city, has all the charm of Bunyan's House Beautiful, as a respite from the moil and toil of the law courts and the slums surrounding them.
Cliff's Notes (which I did not consult until now) lists over seventy characters in the novel, whether major, minor, or walk-ons. But there are remarkably few of the latter. An individual without a name, such as a fellow-passenger in the coach by which the heroine is traveling, may be identified many chapters later and play a vital role. And there are many figures who appear in one scene to add color or a little humor -- character-roles, as it were -- but then keep coming back many times, often with their particular catch phrases or characteristic business, much as in a modern sitcom. And it is not unusual that even these minor characters will contribute some essential key to move the action forward. There is a large number of apparently secondary characters who are drawn in one dimension at first, but who then expand in surprisingly complex ways. Inspector Bucket is one of these, as are the old trooper Mr. George, the young physician Allan Woodcourt, and numerous others. But the most significant examples are Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, who are introduced in Dickens' brilliantly satirical second chapter as the epitome of high fashion, as free from personality as a marble bust or a fashion plate. Yet as the novel proceeds, first Lady Dedlock and then her husband begin to show surprising depth, developing a second dimension in terms of narrative complexity, and even a third, in that they each find themselves feeling things that surprise even them. Finally, there are people who are in three dimensions from the start, such as John Jarndyce, who has a way of quietly surprising everybody, and Esther Summerson whose emotional richness deepens even as she herself claims it does not really exist.
I have to say, though, that Dickens' habit of bringing his characters back in enhanced guises can make for very difficult reading. It requires quite a feat of memory to recall when you encountered a figure before, especially if the appearance was a brief one. Normal character lists do not help because they may tell you things from much later in the novel; one of the entries in the Cliff's Notes list, for instance, reveals the solution to a mystery that Dickens himself spins out over 750 pages! Even the endnotes by Nicola Bradbury in this edition are full of spoilers; she does issue a warning, but I can see no reason why notes of this kind are even needed, since they prevent the reader from looking up the period details that really are necessary. What would really be ideal (though I don't know if it exists) would be some kind of hypertext edition that offered information keyed to how far you had read in the book, withholding information that would not be revealed until later.
Dickens' first great success was THE PICKWICK PAPERS, which he undertook to provide text for a series of illustrations by the artist Robert Seymour, who eventually committed suicide. All his subsequent novels were issued with illustrations, and the inclusion in this edition of the original 40 plates by "Phiz" adds greatly to the effect of the whole. What I like about them is the way that illustrator and author keep out of each other's way; the verbal descriptions work on one level, and the pictures on another, without duplication. I especially like the way Phiz puts in detail, such as the increasing dandyism of Mr. Guppy's dress every time he appears, or the way the portraits hanging on the walls of a salon offer a subtle parody of the action below. Phiz also has two distinct styles: most of his etchings give the impression of pen drawings, almost caricatures, but there are half a dozen or so that are distinctly atmospheric, romantic in nature rather than satirical. But is this not appropriate for an author who himself combined both genres and many more in such a magnificent compendium?
In addition to the illustrations, endnotes, and Dickens' own chapter plans, the Penguin Classics edition contains a useful chronology, notes on the Court of Chancery and Spontaneous Combustion (one of the more gruesome deaths in literature), an extensive bibliography, and three separate introductions: one by Dickens himself, mentioning some of the real sources for his invention; one by the editor Bradbury, infuriatingly academic but making some good points; and a lucid preface by Terry Eagleton. All these are better read after the novel itself than before, but Eagleton's essay especially makes a stimulating cue for later discussion, extracting the diverse strands of this glorious tangle of a book, for the delighted reader to weave together.
Like that other literary monster, Tolstoy’s _War and Peace_, _Bleak House_ is not one book, but several. The story, to begin with, is split into two threads. An omniscient narrator relates events in the present tense, while Esther Summerson, the novel’s heroine, narrates events from her perspective in the past tense. In addition, _Bleak House_ contains several genres. This is a legal drama, a romance, a detective story, a bildungsroman or sentimental education, an indictment of social injustice, and perhaps much more. Dickens, however, does not go into lengthy philosophical considerations the way Tolstoy does in his longest work. _Bleak House_ drags at times, and several passages could be shortened or directly omitted, but all in all, this is a compelling humanistic story.
What lies at the heart of _Bleak House_ is not human. The story revolves around Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce, a Court of Chancery case that has been going on for years as a result of conflicting wills. The case is, in a sense, a pretext for the story, as it gives unity to the novel. _Bleak House_ is the story of several characters whose lives are directly affected by this legal monstrosity. The main characters are Esther, introduced as an orphan at the beginning of the novel, and the distant cousins Ada Clare and Richard Carstone. These three are eventually taken in by John Jarndyce, master of the estate known as Bleak House. John, Richard, and Clare are related, and hope to receive a large sum of money once the case is settled. John regards the case as a curse, while Richard puts his hopes in it, and becomes increasingly involved in the proceedings as the story develops. Other important characters are Lady Dedlock and her husband Sir Leicester, inhabitants of Chesney Wold, and their lawyer Mr. Tulkinghorn. Revelations about Lady Dedlock complicate the plot and tie these characters to Esther and her friends. Finally, one must mention Allan Woodcourt, whose crucial role I will let the reader discover for him/herself.
Like many other Dickens novels, _Bleak House_ presents many colorful secondary characters. Dickens paid so much attention to these “background” figures that, were it not for the fact that they appear sporadically, one feels they would eclipse the protagonists. One of the first to appear is the comic Harold Skimpole, who claims to know nothing about money as it flies out of his hands, and only wishes for the world to let him live his life. There’s also the elderly Miss Flite, who keeps several birds in cages and plans to set them free as soon as the court case is settled. Others worthy of mention are the alcoholic, illiterate Mr. Krook, who walks around with a cat on his shoulder; the young crossing sweeper Jo; Mr. George, a former soldier who owns a shooting gallery; and the detective Mr. Bucket.
“The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself,” the narrator points out in the second half of the novel. “Viewed by this light it becomes a coherent scheme, and not the monstrous maze the laity are apt to think it. Let them but once clearly perceive that its grand principle is to make business for itself at their expense, and surely they will cease to grumble.” _Bleak House_ condemns an institution that has escaped the control of the human beings who brought it into existence. This is, then, a surprisingly modern novel. Dickens is a master at portraying the ways in which we may become trapped in our own labyrinths. The point he makes about the English Court of Chancery applies to many human institutions, including our current socioeconomic system. We build a structure in order to shape chaos into order, and spend the rest of our lives maintaining that structure, which comes to control and devour us.
A Dickensian axiom also present in _Bleak House_ might be stated thus: hard times bring out the best and the worst in human beings. Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce will lead the characters to sympathy, love, sacrifice, hostility, envy, blackmail, and murder. Some will find their destiny as a result of the case; others will let themselves be consumed and destroyed by it. One of the characters in this novel--I won’t say which one--is simply one of the most correct, virtuous human beings ever portrayed in literature. Some will deem this character too good to be believable. I choose to think there are such people in our world. Dickens never fails to give me hope, even though his stories rarely end well for all the characters involved. _Bleak House_ is a hopeful novel, but it is also incredibly sad. It is, furthermore, often perplexing. The most famous example of this occurs in the exact middle of the novel, as a character dies by spontaneous combustion. Critics have read this event as a metaphor for long court cases, the costs of which consume the very same assets the parties are fighting over.
_Bleak House_ may not be Dickens’ most enjoyable novel, but it is formally outstanding and offers a variety of memorable characters and situations. Nabokov felt that splitting the narrative in two by adding Esther’s first-person thread was a mistake. I couldn’t disagree more. Without Esther’s narrative, the novel would have been quite dull. If you’re new to Dickens, I recommend beginning with _Great Expectations_ or _Oliver Twist_. While you will definitely notice the flaws, these novels are page-turners. But by all means, make _Bleak House_ the second or the third Dickens novel you read. It would seem that one should love the imperfect Dickens before one loves the perfect Dickens. He is, in this sense, like the beast in “Beauty and the Beast.”
If you’re looking for a physical copy, I recommend the Penguin edition. (My picture shows the Penguin Clothbound Classics edition; the text is the same as that of the paperback version.) It includes a preface by Terry Eagleton, an introduction and sufficient notes by Nicola Bradbury, and three appendices, one of which reproduces some of Dickens’ working notes for the novel.
My next Dickens novel will be _David Copperfield_.
Thanks for reading, and enjoy the book!
Reviewed in the United States on June 19, 2019
Like that other literary monster, Tolstoy’s _War and Peace_, _Bleak House_ is not one book, but several. The story, to begin with, is split into two threads. An omniscient narrator relates events in the present tense, while Esther Summerson, the novel’s heroine, narrates events from her perspective in the past tense. In addition, _Bleak House_ contains several genres. This is a legal drama, a romance, a detective story, a bildungsroman or sentimental education, an indictment of social injustice, and perhaps much more. Dickens, however, does not go into lengthy philosophical considerations the way Tolstoy does in his longest work. _Bleak House_ drags at times, and several passages could be shortened or directly omitted, but all in all, this is a compelling humanistic story.
What lies at the heart of _Bleak House_ is not human. The story revolves around Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce, a Court of Chancery case that has been going on for years as a result of conflicting wills. The case is, in a sense, a pretext for the story, as it gives unity to the novel. _Bleak House_ is the story of several characters whose lives are directly affected by this legal monstrosity. The main characters are Esther, introduced as an orphan at the beginning of the novel, and the distant cousins Ada Clare and Richard Carstone. These three are eventually taken in by John Jarndyce, master of the estate known as Bleak House. John, Richard, and Clare are related, and hope to receive a large sum of money once the case is settled. John regards the case as a curse, while Richard puts his hopes in it, and becomes increasingly involved in the proceedings as the story develops. Other important characters are Lady Dedlock and her husband Sir Leicester, inhabitants of Chesney Wold, and their lawyer Mr. Tulkinghorn. Revelations about Lady Dedlock complicate the plot and tie these characters to Esther and her friends. Finally, one must mention Allan Woodcourt, whose crucial role I will let the reader discover for him/herself.
Like many other Dickens novels, _Bleak House_ presents many colorful secondary characters. Dickens paid so much attention to these “background” figures that, were it not for the fact that they appear sporadically, one feels they would eclipse the protagonists. One of the first to appear is the comic Harold Skimpole, who claims to know nothing about money as it flies out of his hands, and only wishes for the world to let him live his life. There’s also the elderly Miss Flite, who keeps several birds in cages and plans to set them free as soon as the court case is settled. Others worthy of mention are the alcoholic, illiterate Mr. Krook, who walks around with a cat on his shoulder; the young crossing sweeper Jo; Mr. George, a former soldier who owns a shooting gallery; and the detective Mr. Bucket.
“The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself,” the narrator points out in the second half of the novel. “Viewed by this light it becomes a coherent scheme, and not the monstrous maze the laity are apt to think it. Let them but once clearly perceive that its grand principle is to make business for itself at their expense, and surely they will cease to grumble.” _Bleak House_ condemns an institution that has escaped the control of the human beings who brought it into existence. This is, then, a surprisingly modern novel. Dickens is a master at portraying the ways in which we may become trapped in our own labyrinths. The point he makes about the English Court of Chancery applies to many human institutions, including our current socioeconomic system. We build a structure in order to shape chaos into order, and spend the rest of our lives maintaining that structure, which comes to control and devour us.
A Dickensian axiom also present in _Bleak House_ might be stated thus: hard times bring out the best and the worst in human beings. Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce will lead the characters to sympathy, love, sacrifice, hostility, envy, blackmail, and murder. Some will find their destiny as a result of the case; others will let themselves be consumed and destroyed by it. One of the characters in this novel--I won’t say which one--is simply one of the most correct, virtuous human beings ever portrayed in literature. Some will deem this character too good to be believable. I choose to think there are such people in our world. Dickens never fails to give me hope, even though his stories rarely end well for all the characters involved. _Bleak House_ is a hopeful novel, but it is also incredibly sad. It is, furthermore, often perplexing. The most famous example of this occurs in the exact middle of the novel, as a character dies by spontaneous combustion. Critics have read this event as a metaphor for long court cases, the costs of which consume the very same assets the parties are fighting over.
_Bleak House_ may not be Dickens’ most enjoyable novel, but it is formally outstanding and offers a variety of memorable characters and situations. Nabokov felt that splitting the narrative in two by adding Esther’s first-person thread was a mistake. I couldn’t disagree more. Without Esther’s narrative, the novel would have been quite dull. If you’re new to Dickens, I recommend beginning with _Great Expectations_ or _Oliver Twist_. While you will definitely notice the flaws, these novels are page-turners. But by all means, make _Bleak House_ the second or the third Dickens novel you read. It would seem that one should love the imperfect Dickens before one loves the perfect Dickens. He is, in this sense, like the beast in “Beauty and the Beast.”
If you’re looking for a physical copy, I recommend the Penguin edition. (My picture shows the Penguin Clothbound Classics edition; the text is the same as that of the paperback version.) It includes a preface by Terry Eagleton, an introduction and sufficient notes by Nicola Bradbury, and three appendices, one of which reproduces some of Dickens’ working notes for the novel.
My next Dickens novel will be _David Copperfield_.
Thanks for reading, and enjoy the book!
Top reviews from other countries
As always with Everyman's library, it's a beautiful book, and a pleasure to read. Font could be bigger, but it's readable enough as is.
I won't review the novel itself, if you are interested in reading Dickens or similar classics, the only real question is which edition.
The introduction and annotations provided in this edition are invaluable for both new readers and seasoned Dickens fans. They offer insightful background information about the author's life, the historical context of the novel, and explanations of obscure terms or references, enhancing the overall understanding of the story. The thoughtful inclusion of illustrations from the original publication further enriches the reading experience, providing a visual dimension to Dickens' vivid characters and settings. Overall, EireannPress has created a beautiful edition that combines scholarly attention to detail with a reader-friendly approach, making it a must-have for any collector of classic literature.
In terms of delivery and service, I was impressed with the promptness and care taken in packaging. The book arrived in perfect condition, which is crucial for collectors like myself. The combination of an outstanding edition and excellent service makes this purchase highly satisfying. I wholeheartedly recommend this edition of "Bleak House" to anyone looking to delve into Dickens or to complete their collection of Bantam Classics.