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Bleak House - Charles Dickens

 

Description: ISBN 0141439726 / Author: Charles Dickens / Genre: Classic Literature / Bleak House is one of Dicken’s longest and most complex novels. ... more
Bleak House - Charles Dickens ... It contains many different and divergent storylines that intertwine as characters meet by chance or fate. In that sense it is impossible to summarise, though key themes run through it: the foremost of these being the absurdity of legal proceedings that seem to have no purpose but to line the pockets of lawyers. The case of ‘Jardyce and Jarndyce’ is the key example here. The wards of court in the case are the children Richard Carstone and Ada Clare who live with their relative, the philanthropic John Jarndyce. Initially the novel concerns their love for each other. The novel’s heroine is Esther Summerson, an orphan, who also goes to live with Jarndyce, and narrates much of the novel. Other strands of the book concern Sir Leicester Dedlock and his beautiful wife who hides a shocking secret about an illegitimate child and a long lost love. The machinations of her search for the latter bring her to the penniless and illiterate Jo and a grave where she will later die in terrible circumstances brought about by the pursuit of her old lover. The mystery of the death of old lawyer Tulkinghorn brings us another strand with the detective Bucket intervening in one of the novel’s many highlights. Esther and John Jarndyce’s relationship is at the heart of the later stages of the book, and his finally act of generosity in giving her up to the young doctor Woodcourt who she loves. In between there are numerous interesting or plain hilarious minor characters such as the ridiculous Mrs Jellyby whose endless philanthropy have left her utterly unconcerned about her family and Harold Skimpole who is a lazy and selfish man looked after by others’ generosity and his mimicry of childish irresponsibility. In its time the novel was seen as poorly constructed despite its host of interesting characters although later critics have generally seen it as one of his very finest works despite its occasional verbosity.

Newest Review: ... fork in the chaotic home of the absurd do-gooder, Mrs. Jellybee. In a huge sweep, this novel describes how just about every ... more

 ... layer of English society is locked together and largely blighted by the hugely inadequate system of law that we call "Equity" - the species of law that is dispensed by the Court of Chancery that once sat in the old hall of Lincoln's Inn - and which was radically overhauled some twenty years after Bleak House was published. It is inspired by a real-life law suit ("the Titchbourne Claimant") that took over 30 years to come to settlement. In Bleak House, the central lawsuit, unresolved for dec...more

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Bleak House by Charles Dickens - Penguin Books
Pages: 1024, Paperback, Penguin Books - Books/Subjects/Fiction/Au ...
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Bleak House (Everyman's Library Classics & Contemporary Classics)
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Format: paperback, Publisher: Macmillan Education, ISBN: 14050732
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Format: Paperback, ISBN: 9780199536313
Pages: 992, Paperback, Oxford University Press - Books/Subjects/F ...
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Format: paperback (B format), Publisher: Oxford University Press,
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Format: Paperback, ISBN: 9780099511458
Pages: 800, Paperback, Vintage Classics - Books/Subjects/Fiction/ ...
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Format: paperback (B format), Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd, ISBN:
Pages: 1088, Edition: Rev Ed, Paperback, Penguin Classics - Books ...
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Athanasius+Green
Premium Review Bleak House - Charles Dickens: Dead, your Majesty! (438 words)
by Athanasius Green - written on 14.10.00 (Very useful, 167 readings)
Rating:

Q. What do you call 5000 lawyers at the bottom of the sea? A. A good start. This little joke might serve quite adequately as a good summary of Bleak House. Yes, it has plenty of toe-curling Dickensian sentimentality and magnificent rhetoric. But, these defects forgiven, it is full of astute caricature which is often comic, caustic, salutary, pathetic. It is full of Dickensian special effects - one of the central characters spontaneously combusts, and many others are driven to one kind of madness or another. It is full of wonderful little details - a bedroom curtain held on its rail by a kitchen fork in the chaotic home of the absurd ...

 

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Bleak House - Charles Dickens