Bleak House by Charles Dickens (best ebook reader for laptop .txt) 📕
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Bleak House, completed by Dickens in 1853, tells several interlocking story-lines and features a host of colorful characters. Though very difficult to summarise, the novel centers around the decades-long legal case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, involving the fair distribution of assets of a valuable estate. The case is mired in the legal quagmire of the Court of Chancery, whose byzantine and sluggish workings Dickens spares no effort to expose and condemn. Dickens also exposes the miserable condition of the poor, living in squalid, pestilential circumstances.
The novel’s heroine is Esther Summerson, whose parentage is unclear and who has been brought up by a cold and strict godmother, who tells her only: “Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers.” On the death of her godmother, she is given an education through the unexpected intervention of a Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House, whom she has never met. When she comes of age, she is appointed as a companion to Ada, one of two young people who are “wards of Chancery,” whose fates depend on the outcome of the legal struggle and who are taken into guardianship by Mr. Jarndyce. The other ward Richard, despite Mr. Jarndyce’s frequent warnings, eventually goes astray by pinning all his hopes on a successful outcome of Jarndyce and Jarndyce.
We are also introduced to Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, and to their cunning and suspicious lawyer, Mr. Tulkinghorn. He uncovers evidence that Lady Dedlock is not all she seems and determines to remorselessly pursue every lead to expose her secrets.
The novel has a curious construction in that the first-person narrative of Esther, written in the past tense, is interleaved with many chapters written from the omniscient viewpoint and in the present tense.
Several prominent critics such as G. K. Chesterton consider Bleak House to be Dickens’ finest novel, and it is often ranked among the best English-language novels of all time.
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- Author: Charles Dickens
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By Charles Dickens.
Table of Contents Titlepage Imprint Preface Bleak House I: In Chancery II: In Fashion III: A Progress IV: Telescopic Philanthropy V: A Morning Adventure VI: Quite at Home VII: The Ghost’s Walk VIII: Covering a Multitude of Sins IX: Signs and Tokens X: The Law-Writer XI: Our Dear Brother XII: On the Watch XIII: Esther’s Narrative XIV: Deportment XV: Bell Yard XVI: Tom-All-Alone’s XVII: Esther’s Narrative XVIII: Lady Dedlock XIX: Moving On XX: A New Lodger XXI: The Smallweed Family XXII: Mr. Bucket XXIII: Esther’s Narrative XXIV: An Appeal Case XXV: Mrs. Snagsby Sees It All XXVI: Sharpshooters XXVII: More Old Soldiers Than One XXVIII: The Ironmaster XXIX: The Young Man XXX: Esther’s Narrative XXXI: Nurse and Patient XXXII: The Appointed Time XXXIII: Interlopers XXXIV: A Turn of the Screw XXXV: Esther’s Narrative XXXVI: Chesney Wold XXXVII: Jarndyce and Jarndyce XXXVIII: A Struggle XXXIX: Attorney and Client XL: National and Domestic XLI: In Mr. Tulkinghorn’s Room XLII: In Mr. Tulkinghorn’s Chambers XLIII: Esther’s Narrative XLIV: The Letter and the Answer XLV: In Trust XLVI: Stop Him! XLVII: Jo’s Will XLVIII: Closing In XLIX: Dutiful Friendship L: Esther’s Narrative LI: Enlightened LII: Obstinacy LIII: The Track LIV: Springing a Mine LV: Flight LVI: Pursuit LVII: Esther’s Narrative LVIII: A Wintry Day and Night LIX: Esther’s Narrative LX: Perspective LXI: A Discovery LXII: Another Discovery LXIII: Steel and Iron LXIV: Esther’s Narrative LXV: Beginning the World LXVI: Down in Lincolnshire LXVII: The Close of Esther’s Narrative Endnotes Colophon Uncopyright ImprintThis ebook is the product of many hours of hard work by volunteers for Standard Ebooks, and builds on the hard work of other literature lovers made possible by the public domain.
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PrefaceA Chancery judge once had the kindness to inform me, as one of a company of some hundred and fifty men and women not labouring under any suspicions of lunacy, that the Court of Chancery, though the shining subject of much popular prejudice (at which point I thought the judge’s eye had a cast in my direction), was almost immaculate. There had been, he admitted, a trivial blemish or so in its rate of progress, but this was exaggerated and had been entirely owing to the “parsimony of the public,” which guilty public, it appeared, had been until lately bent in the most determined manner on by no means enlarging the number of Chancery judges appointed—I believe by Richard the Second, but any other king will do as well.
This seemed to me too profound a joke to be inserted in the body of this book or I should have restored it to Conversation Kenge or to Mr. Vholes, with one or other of whom I think it must have originated. In such mouths I might have coupled it with an apt quotation from one of Shakespeare’s sonnets:
“My nature is subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer’s hand:
Pity me, then, and wish I were renewed!”
But as it is wholesome that the parsimonious public should know what has been doing, and still is doing, in this connection, I mention here that everything set forth in these pages concerning the Court of Chancery is substantially true, and within the truth. The case of Gridley is in no essential altered from one of actual occurrence, made public by a disinterested person who was professionally acquainted with the whole of the monstrous wrong from beginning to end. At the present moment (August, 1853) there is a suit before the court which was commenced nearly twenty years ago, in which from thirty to forty counsel have been known to appear at one time, in which costs have been incurred to the amount of seventy thousand pounds, which is a friendly suit, and which is (I am assured) no nearer to its termination now than when it was begun. There is another well-known suit in Chancery, not yet decided, which was commenced before the close of the last century and in which more than double the amount of seventy thousand pounds has been swallowed up in costs. If I wanted other authorities for Jarndyce and Jarndyce, I could rain them on these pages, to the shame of—a parsimonious public.
There is only one other point on which I offer a word of remark. The possibility of what is called spontaneous combustion has been denied since the death of Mr. Krook; and my good friend Mr. Lewes (quite mistaken, as he soon found, in supposing the thing to have been abandoned by all authorities) published some ingenious letters to me at the time when that event was chronicled, arguing that spontaneous combustion could not possibly be. I have no need to observe that I do not wilfully or negligently mislead my readers and that before I wrote that description I took pains
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