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1852–1853 novel by Charles Dickens From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bleak House is a novel by English author Charles Dickens, first published as a 20-episode serial between 12 March 1852 and 12 September 1853. The novel has many characters and several subplots, and is told partly by the novel's heroine, Esther Summerson, and partly by an omniscient narrator. At the centre of Bleak House is a long-running legal case in the Court of Chancery, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, which comes about because a testator has written several conflicting wills. In a preface to the 1853 first edition, Dickens said there were many actual precedents for his fictional case.[1] One such was probably Thellusson v Woodford, in which a will read in 1797[2] was contested and not determined until 1859. Though many in the legal profession criticised Dickens's satire as exaggerated, Bleak House helped support a judicial reform movement that culminated in the enactment of legal reform in the 1870s.[3]
Author | Charles Dickens |
---|---|
Illustrator | Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz) |
Cover artist | Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz) |
Language | English |
Genre | Novel |
Published | Serialised 12 March 1852 – 12 September 1853; book form 12 September 1853 |
Publisher | Bradbury & Evans |
Publication place | England |
Preceded by | David Copperfield |
Followed by | A Child's History of England |
Some scholars debate when Bleak House is set. The English legal historian Sir William Holdsworth sets the action in 1827;[4] however, reference to preparation for the building of a railway in Chapter LV suggests the 1830s.
Jarndyce and Jarndyce is an interminable probate case in the Court of Chancery concerning two or more wills and their beneficiaries. Lady Honoria Dedlock, the beneficiary of one of the wills, lives with her husband, Sir Leicester Dedlock, at his estate at Chesney Wold. While listening to the reading by Mr Tulkinghorn, the family solicitor, of an affidavit, Lady Dedlock recognises the handwriting on the copy. The sight affects her so much she almost faints, which Mr Tulkinghorn notices and investigates. He traces the copyist, a pauper known only as "Nemo", in London. Nemo has recently died, and the only person to identify him is a street-sweeper, a poor homeless boy named Jo, who lives in a particularly grim and poverty-stricken part of the city known as Tom-All-Alone's.
Esther Summerson is raised by the harsh Miss Barbary, who tells her, "Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers." After Miss Barbary dies, John Jarndyce becomes Esther's guardian and assigns "Conversation" Kenge, a Chancery lawyer, to take charge of her future. After attending school for six years, Esther moves in with Kenge at his home, Bleak House. Jarndyce simultaneously assumes custody of two other wards, his cousins Richard Carstone and Ada Clare. They are beneficiaries in one of the wills at issue in Jarndyce and Jarndyce; their guardian is a beneficiary under another will, and the two wills conflict.
Richard and Ada soon fall in love, but though Jarndyce does not oppose the match, he stipulates that Richard must first choose a profession. Richard first tries a career in medicine, and Esther meets Allan Woodcourt, a physician, at the house of Richard's tutor. When Richard mentions the prospect of gaining from the resolution of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Jarndyce beseeches him never to put faith in what he calls "the family curse." Richard decides to change his career to law, then later switches again and spends the remainder of his funds to buy a commission as a military officer.
Lady Dedlock—disguised as her maid, Mademoiselle Hortense—pays Jo to take her to Nemo's grave. Meanwhile, Mr Tulkinghorn is concerned Lady Dedlock has a secret which could threaten the interests of Sir Leicester and watches her constantly, even enlisting the real Hortense to spy on her. He also enlists Inspector Bucket to run Jo out of town, to eliminate anything that might connect Nemo to the Dedlocks. Esther sees Lady Dedlock at church and later talks with her at Chesney Wold.
Lady Dedlock discovers that Esther is her own child: unknown to Sir Leicester, before she married, Honoria had had a lover, Captain Hawdon (Nemo), and bore a daughter by him, who she had believed was dead. The daughter, Esther, was brought up by Honoria's sister, Miss Barbary. Esther becomes sick (possibly with smallpox, since it severely disfigures her) from Jo. Lady Dedlock waits until she has recovered before telling her the truth. Though the two women are happy to be reunited, Lady Dedlock tells Esther they must never acknowledge their connection again.
Upon recovery, Esther finds that Richard, having failed at several professions, has ignored Jarndyce's advice and is trying to push Jarndyce and Jarndyce to conclusion in his and Ada's favour, and as a result has fallen out with Jarndyce. In the process, Richard loses all his money and declines in health. He and Ada have secretly married, and Ada is pregnant. Esther has her own romance when Mr Woodcourt returns to England, having survived a shipwreck, and he continues to seek her company despite her disfigurement. However, Esther has already agreed to marry her guardian, the much older Jarndyce.
Hortense and Mr Tulkinghorn discover the truth about Lady Dedlock's past. After a confrontation with Mr Tulkinghorn, Lady Dedlock flees her home, leaving a note apologising to Sir Leicester for her conduct. Mr Tulkinghorn dismisses Hortense, who is no longer of any use to him. He is shot through the heart, and suspicion falls on Lady Dedlock. Sir Leicester, discovering his lawyer's death and his wife's confession and flight, suffers a catastrophic stroke, but he manages to communicate that he forgives his wife and wants her to return.
Inspector Bucket, who has previously investigated several matters related to Jarndyce and Jarndyce, accepts Sir Leicester's commission to find Lady Dedlock. He initially suspects her of the murder but is able to clear her of suspicion after discovering Hortense's guilt. He requests Esther's help to find her mother. Lady Dedlock has no way to know of her husband's forgiveness or that she has been cleared of suspicion, and she wanders the country in cold weather before dying at the cemetery of her former lover, Captain Hawdon. Esther and Inspector Bucket find her there.
Progress in Jarndyce and Jarndyce seems to take a turn for the better when a later will is found, which revokes all previous wills and leaves the bulk of the estate to Richard and Ada. Jarndyce cancels his engagement to Esther, who becomes engaged to Mr Woodcourt. They go to Chancery to find Richard. On their arrival, they learn that the case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce is finally over, because the costs of litigation have entirely consumed the estate. Richard collapses, and blood in his mouth makes it evident he is in the last stages of tuberculosis. He apologises to Jarndyce and dies. Jarndyce takes in Ada and her child, a boy whom she names Richard. Esther and Mr Woodcourt marry and live in a Yorkshire house which Jarndyce gives to them. The couple later raise two daughters.
Many of the novel's subplots focus on minor characters. One such subplot is the hard life and happy, though difficult, marriage of Caddy Jellyby and Prince Turveydrop. Another plot focuses on George Rouncewell's rediscovery of his family, and his reunion with his mother and brother.
Although not a character, Jarndyce and Jarndyce is a vital part of the novel. It is believed to have been inspired by a number of real-life Chancery cases involving wills, including those of Charles Day and William Jennens,[5] and of Charlotte Smith's father-in-law, Richard Smith.[6]
This section needs additional citations for verification. (April 2016) |
Much criticism of Bleak House focuses on its unique narrative structure: it is told both by a third-person omniscient narrator and a first-person narrator (Esther Summerson). The omniscient narrator speaks in the present tense and is a dispassionate observer. 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 characterised by modesty, consciousness of her own limits, and willingness to disclose to us her own thoughts and feelings. These two narrative strands never quite intersect, though they do run in parallel. Nabokov felt that letting Esther tell part of the story was Dickens's "main mistake" in planning the novel.[20] Alex Zwerdling, a scholar from Berkeley, after observing that "critics have not been kind to Esther", nevertheless thought Dickens's use of Esther's narrative "one of the triumphs of his art".[21]
Esther's portion of the narrative is perceived by some scholars[who?] as 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 judgement and satiric observation that characterise her pages. 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 indictment of the English Chancery court system. Chancery or equity courts were one half of the English civil justice system, existing side-by-side with law courts. Chancery courts heard actions having to do with wills and estates, or with the uses of private property. By the mid-nineteenth century, English law reformers had long criticised 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. Scholars, such as the English legal historian Sir William Searle Holdsworth, in his 1928 series of lectures,[22] 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 said in the preface to the book edition of Bleak House 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. This was highly controversial. The nineteenth century saw the increasing triumph of the scientific worldview. Scientifically inclined writers, as well as physicians and scientists, rejected spontaneous human combustion as legend or superstition. When the instalment of Bleak House containing Krook's demise appeared, the literary critic George Henry Lewes accused Dickens of "giving currency to a vulgar error".[23] Dickens vigorously defended the reality of spontaneous human combustion and cited many documented cases, as well as his own memories of coroners' inquests that he had attended when he had been a 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 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, considers Bleak House to be Dickens's greatest novel. Daniel Burt, in his book The Novel 100: A Ranking of the Greatest Novels of All Time, ranks Bleak House number 12. Horror and supernatural fiction author Stephen King named it among his top 10 favourite books.[24]
The house named Bleak House in Broadstairs is not the original. Dickens stayed with his family at this house (then called Fort House) for at least one month every summer from 1839 until 1851. However, there is no evidence that it formed the basis of the fictional Bleak House, particularly as it is so far from the location of the fictional house.
The house is on top of the cliff on Fort Road and was renamed Bleak House after his death, in his honour.[citation needed] It is the only four storey grade II listed mansion in Broadstairs.
Dickens locates the fictional Bleak House in St Albans, Hertfordshire, where he wrote some of the book. An 18th-century house in Folly Lane, St Albans, has been identified as a possible inspiration for the titular house in the story since the time of the book's publication and was known as Bleak House for many years.[25]
In the late nineteenth century, actress Fanny Janauschek acted in a stage version of Bleak House in which she played both Lady Dedlock and her maid Hortense. The two characters never appear on stage at the same time. In 1876 John Pringle Burnett's play, Jo found success in London with his wife, Jennie Lee playing Jo, the crossing-sweeper.[26] In 1893, Jane Coombs acted in a version of Bleak House.[27]
A 1901 short film, The Death of Poor Joe, is the oldest known surviving film featuring a Charles Dickens character (Jo in Bleak House).[28]
In the silent film era, Bleak House was filmed in 1920 and 1922. The latter version featured Sybil Thorndike as Lady Dedlock.[29]
In 1928, a short film made in the UK in the Phonofilm sound-on-film process starred Bransby Williams as Grandfather Smallweed.[30]
In 1998, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a radio adaptation of five hour-long episodes, starring Michael Kitchen as John Jarndyce.[31]
The BBC has produced three television adaptations of Bleak House. The first serial, Bleak House, was broadcast in 1959 in eleven half-hour episodes.[32] The serial survives. The second Bleak House, starring Diana Rigg and Denholm Elliott, aired in 1985 as an eight-part series.[33] In 2005, the third Bleak House was broadcast in fifteen episodes starring Anna Maxwell Martin, Gillian Anderson, Denis Lawson, Charles Dance, and Carey Mulligan.[34] It won a Peabody Award that same year because it "created 'appointment viewing,' soap-style, for a series that greatly rewarded its many extra viewers."[35]
Charles Jefferys wrote the words for and Charles William Glover wrote the music for songs called "Ada Clare"[36] and "Farewell to the Old House",[37] which are inspired by the novel.
Anthony Phillips included a piece entitled "Bleak House" on his 1979 progressive rock release, Sides. The form of the lyrics roughly follows the narrative of Esther Summerson, and is written in her voice.[38]
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 final double issue, which cost two shillings.[citation needed]
Installment | Date of publication | Chapters |
---|---|---|
I | March 1852 | 1–4 |
II | April 1852 | 5–7 |
III | May 1852 | 8–10 |
IV | June 1852 | 11–13 |
V | July 1852 | 14–16 |
VI | August 1852 | 17–19 |
VII | September 1852 | 20–22 |
VIII | October 1852 | 23–25 |
IX | November 1852 | 26–29 |
X | December 1852 | 30–32 |
XI | January 1853 | 33–35 |
XII | February 1853 | 36–38 |
XIII | March 1853 | 39–42 |
XIV | April 1853 | 43–46 |
XV | May 1853 | 47–49 |
XVI | June 1853 | 50–53 |
XVII | July 1853 | 54–56 |
XVIII | August 1853 | 57–59 |
XIX–XX | September 1853 | 60–67 |
Charles Dickens, Bleak House, ed. Nicola Bradbury (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996)
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