Bleak House
Edition: Centennial ed.
Publisher: The Literary Guild of America, Inc.
Published: 1953
Place of publication: Garden City, New York
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 595
Copyright date: 1953
Subjects: Young women -- Fiction.; Guardian and ward -- Fiction.; Illegitimate children -- Fiction.; Inheritance and succession -- Fiction.; London (England) -- Fiction.
Genres: Fiction.
Description: Opening in the swirling mists of London, the novel revolves around a court case that has dragged on for decades--the infamous Jarndyce and Jarndyce lawsuit, in which an inheritance is gradually devoured by legal costs. As Dickens takes us through the case's history, he presents a cast of characters as idiosyncratic and memorable as any he ever created, including the beautiful Lady Dedlock, who hides a shocking secret about an illegitimate child and a long-lost love; Mr. Bucket, one of the first detectives to appear in English fiction; and the hilarious Mrs. Jellyby, whose endless philanthropy has left her utterly unconcerned about her own family. As a question of inheritance becomes a question of murder, the novel's heroine, Esther Summerson, struggles to discover the truth about her birth and her unknown mother's tragic life. Can the resilience of her love transform a bleak house? And--more devastatingly--will justice prevail? --From publisher's description.