A. Bleak House: Literary and Legal Critics It has become a truism to describe Bleak House as the most "legal" of Dickens' novels 1 and to describe Dickens' attitude toward the law as thoroughly negative. Bleak House is "a crushing indictment of the failure of Law to observe the human need for justice." 2 Although he certainly never created an Atticus Finch, Dickens did not treat all aspects and characters of the law uniformly. Dickens' attack on the courts was limited to the chancery or equity courts. Although that attack is scathing, Dickens takes no advantage of the opportunity to extend the criticism to the law courts. The "victims" in this novel (and there are many) are mainly victimized by chancery, by other characters, or by their own foibles. In Bleak House, Dickens' characters who are involved in law enforcement do not fare particularly badly. Likewise the satire directed toward his law clerks, stationers, and law writers is not especially vitriolic. Dickens saves the really harsh portrayals for the lawyers, but even there, not all the lawyers are equally reprehensible.

Like all of Dickens' novels, Bleak House has generated extensive critical commentary since its publication in 1853, the majority of it dedicated to the metaphorical aspects of the novel. Equity, which should be dedicated to the pursuit of fairness, justice, and truth, instead functions as a metaphor for all the ills of Victorian society. Bleak House is not simply an attack on the law or ... If you are interested in obtaining a lexis.com® ID and Password, please contact us at 1-(800)-227-4908 or visit us at . Search Documents Digested read: Bleak House by Charles Dickens | Books | The Guardian Charles Dickens at 200 Digested read: Bleak House by Charles Dickens John Crace digests your second-favourite Dickens novel, according to the Guardian Books poll celebrating the bicentenary of the writer's birth Patrick Kennedy as Richard and Carey Mulligan as Ada in the BBC adaptation of Bleak House. Photograph: Mike Hogan/BBC Thursday 10 November 2011 09.49 EST First published on Thursday 10 November 2011 09.49 EST Share on Messenger Close London.

Fog everywhere. And in the very heart of the fog, the Lord Chancellor's court where the case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on, the nature of its contestation long since lost to all parties, save to the lawyers who eagerly count the costs. Though on this day some progress is made as two young people are made wards of their uncle, John Jarndyce, who resides at Bleak House. Meanwhile in Lincolnshire My Lady Dedlock, some 20 years younger than her husband, Sir Leicester, is receiving the family lawyer, Mr Tulkinghorn, prior to her departure from the tedium of the country for Paris. He shows her an affidavit and My Lady blanches. "Who copied this?" she asks, before delicately fainting. * Oh silly me! I can't think what possessed me to think I was clever enough to write a first person narrative all about silly old me, but I've started so I might as well carry on. Where was I? Oh yes, affecting to be a great deal stupider than I am. I rather think you might find that quite annoying after a while. But then as I'm also consistently nice the whole time, you might find that annoying too.

But I am getting ahead of myself. My name is Esther Summerson. My parents are unknown to me and my early years were spent with my godmother. After she died I was sent away to a school and six years on I received a letter – as you do – saying that a Mr John Jarndyce wanted me to be a companion to his niece and nephew. How lovely Ada and Richard turned out to be, and after a brief interlude with the Jellybys so that the satirical Mr Dickens could make his social commentary about those who put the wellbeing of the peoples of the Borioboola-Gha before that of their own, we settled at Bleak House near St Albans. There we met our benefactor, the kind Mr Jarndyce, and his dear friend Mr Skimpole, whom even one as stupid as me began to think a parasite after he begged Richard and I to lend him some money. But that unpleasantness was soon forgotten as Richard and Ada fell in love with one another. "I think I will become a doctor," he said.

"Though don't forget I will have lots of money when Jarndyce v Jarndyce is settled." * In Chancery, having noted My Lady Dedlock's interest, Mr Tulkinghorn is enquiring about the identity of the scrivener. He is a man called Nemo who has conveniently died in his lodgings. But how? Perhaps young Jo the crossing sweeper can help us. And who is Jo? Why he is the essence of Victorian pathos, the lowest of the low, unnoticed and unloved by society and yet the very symbol of purity and goodness. "He wuz wery good to me," Jo says in a manner some may find endearing. "I don't kno nuffink." And yet if he knows so little why is it that this mysterious woman of very obvious bearing is asking young Jo to show her the unmarked grave where Nemo is buried? Be assured that Mr Tulkinghorn's spies will find out. My, how slow and convoluted the story has become, and still so many minor characters to introduce, for how else can Mr Dickens spin out the serialisation into 20 monthly parts?

Yet if you want to hear of Miss Flite, the Snagsbys, Mrs Rouncewell, the Smallweeds, Krook and others, then I shall have to refer you to the original text: for now be content to meet Mr Guppy, the young lawyer, who has noticed an uncommon resemblance between My Lady Dedlock and Miss Esther Summerson. * It's me, Esther, again. Still cloyingly submissive you'll be pleased to know. Though not so much as to accept the impertinent offer of marriage from Mr Guppy, for – if it is not too much to hope – I rather think that in 500 pages or so I may be betrothed to the handsome and warm-hearted Dr Woodcourt who gave me some reason for encouragement before leaving the narrative after being nice to Young Jo.

And so I spend my days happily, trying to keep dear Mr Jarndyce away from the east wind – my how he becomes agitated when the wind is so – and watching my dear, dear friends Ada and Richard fall ever more in love, though not without some anxiety on Mr Jarndyce's part for he feared that Richard was falling prey to his Jarndyce v Jarndyce obsession. "Make no mistake, Richard," he warned, "No good will ever come from Chancery." Richard was not to be warned, though. Having decided perhaps that medicine was not for him, he had set his mind to being a lawyer so that he might better understand the case. Like Mr Jarndyce, I too feared for Richard's sanity, but as a mere woman what could I know of such matters? And besides, he and Ada were so very in love that I believed her goodness might triumph. Besides, there were other more exciting matters at hand, for Mr Jarndyce had taken us to stay with Mr Boythorn – pray, don't ask – and in church we had espied for the first time Sir Leicester and My Lady Dedlock.

"How very much alike you and my Lady Dedlock look," said Ada. "Fie!" I replied. "Let's go and help a few poor people in the village." * What darkness descends. It is November. Filth and smoke hangs everywhere, clogging the very soul. In Chancery, the lawyers grow rich while their clients go mad, but Mr Tulkinghorn has intelligence that Nemo is a Captain Hawdon with whom My Lady Dedlock had an Affair before she married Sir Leicester, and from which union sprang the woman we now know as Miss Esther Summerson. All he needs are the letters in Krook's possession to prove it. But what is this? Krook has spontaneously combusted and the letters burnt with him. Who could have imagined such an end? Not My Lady Dedlock, who fears her secret will soon be exposed. What will she do? First she will sack her French maid, Hortense. Why, you ask? Obviously because it is quite handy for later developments in the plot. And then she confesses all to Esther. "Truly I am the worst mother of all time! How can you forgive me, child? Yet we cannot see each other again!" she cries.

What glorious melodrama! What exclamation marks! Yet Esther is not greatly disturbed, for she is a kindly soul and is well disposed to Mr Dickens. She understands the demands of writing to monthly deadlines so is prepared to overlook that some of My Lady Dedlock's story does not tally with the plotting of the early chapters. And so, dear reader, should you. * I must confess that the news I was My Lady Dedlock's bastard took me somewhat by surprise at first but I quickly shrugged it off after telling my benefactor, Mr Jarndyce, who also counselled me to keep my silence. Besides which, much of my time was taken with nursing Young Jo who was suffering from smallpox. "I don't kno nuffink," he said before vanishing into the night, though not before infecting me. And so it was that I too succumbed to the vile illness and found myself quite without sight for a month, a cliff-hanger infinitely more effective in a serialisation than when you need only turn the page to find my sight restored. My face, though, was quite disfigured, but such is my easygoing nature that I was not greatly upset.

If I was to be ugly from now on, so be it. How could I complain when there were so many other people so much worse off than me? And yet my new found hideousness did cause Mr Jarndyce to offer me his hand in marriage, a kindness I was quite willing to accept though we both agreed to keep our arrangement secret because there was much else to occupy us. Richard had joined the Army with Trooper George and decided Mr Janrdyce was his implacable enemy. How it pained me to see him gripped by the curse of Chancery, still more so as Ada was so devoted to him and has married him in secret. And lo, if that wasn't Dr Woodcourt coming back from India? * Misery. Squalor. Tenements. Death. My Lady Dedlock is speeding to London. Why? It seems that the letters are not burnt and that Mr Tulkinghorn is planning to reveal her secret. But no! Can you hear the gunshots? Mr Tulkinghorn is lying dead. Who can have done such a deed? "I'm arresting you for murder, Trooper George," says Inspector Bucket. "But I am innocent," he replies.

"I know," says Bucket, knowingly, "but I had to arrest you to lure out the real culprit." "But it was not me either," cries My Lady Dedlock. "I know that, too," says Bucket. "The murderer is none other than Hortense who was lodging in my home." "None of this seems very likely," observes the reader. "Forgive me," says Bucket. "I'm one of the first fictional cops and I haven't really got the hang of these police procedurals." And my lords and ladies, right reverends and wrong reverends, Mr Tulkinghorn is not the only one lying dead. There on the street is Young Jo whose last words were, "I am wery symbolic, sir." Who will mourn him? Certainly not anyone in the 21st century! What also of My Lady Dedlock? What choice does she have but to fly now that Bucket has told Sir Leicester of her secret? And what irony that Sir Leicester chooses this moment to have a stroke while declaring his forgiveness? * Back to little old me! I wasn't at all well after getting smallpox and my recovery wasn't much helped by the news my mother had gone missing.

How poignant it was that she had gone looking for me and had dropped down dead next to the grave of her former lover! How sad I would have been, had not Dr Woodcourt declared he was not concerned about my deformity and Mr Jarndyce, seeing the honour of the good doctor's intentions, released me from my promise to him. And gave me £200 into the bargain. It was a bit disappointing that Richard died, but I suppose that was almost inevitable. As it was that Jarndyce v Jarndyce should finally be resolved with no one getting anything. Now seven years have passed and how happy I am that everyone still thinks I'm wonderful. It's Charles Dickens's 200th birthday, but you've not had time to read the books.

Thank heavens for digested read Published: 6 Feb 2012 Sammy the baby seal has drawn the short straw and has to re-enact the famous scene in which a killer whale swallows his great-great-grandfather Sid whole Published: 12 Dec 2011 John Crace makes the famously autobiographical novel flash before your eyes Published: 1 Feb 2012 Thanks to the utterly useless Gordon Brown, we're apparently all going to be so broke we'll have to drive a Fiat 500. Frankly, I'd rather die Published: 5 Dec 2011 Bleak House : Charles Dickens : 9780307947192 Add to basket Add to wishlist Description One of Charles Dickens's most critically admired novels, this story of a monumental and life-consuming court case features one of his most vast and varied casts of colorful characters.

In "Bleak House, " competing claims of love and inheritance--complicated by murder--have given rise to a costly and decades-long legal battle that one litigant refers to as "the family curse." The insidious London fog that rises from the river Thames and seeps into the very bones of the characters symbolizes the pervasive corruption of the legal system and the society that supports it, targets of Dickens's satirical wrath. Displaying Dickens's familiar panoramic sweep and brilliant characters--including the mysterious orphan Esther Summerson, her gentle guardian John Jarndyce, the haughty Lady Dedlock, and the scheming lawyer Mr. Tulkinghorn--the novel is also a bold experimental narrative that unforgettably dramatizes our most basic human conflicts. show more Product details 134.62 x 203.2 x 48.26mm | 839.14g Publication date Bleak House Summary Bleak House Bleak House Bleak House was the ninth novel published by Charles Dickens, appearing in serialized form in twenty instalments between March 1852 and September 1853.

Critics generally agree that this is one of the Dickens' most remarkable novels and his most complete. Bleak House contains a gallery of characters and a series of subplots unparalleled in the rest of his work. The story is told alternately in a narrator in first person, Esther Summerson, the heroine of the novel, and an omniscient narrator. The story is rooted in a legal case called Jarndyce v. Jarndyce involving a disputed inheritance, a challenged will, large sums of money and land around Marr manor in south Yorkshire. In one way or another the court case affects each of the characters in the novel. The Jarndyce case has been dragging on for generations and has been the ruin of almost everyone involved. Dickens had often used his writing to criticize aspects of Victorian society; in Bleak House, Dickens drew on his experiences as a law clerk to satirize the slow moving and inefficient legal system. The plot of the story is set amid the uncompromising slowness and the Byzantine character of the law and the Court of Justice (Chancery). It has been argued that the novel helped bring about reforms in the legal system.

John Jarndyce is the owner of an estate called Bleak House, which gives its name to the title. Intertwined with the main story line are many subplots involving Esther's life, as well as life on the neighboring estate owned by Sir Leicester Dedlock. There is also subplot involving an investigation into a murder, which seems to have mysterious ties to the court case. An Awkward Proposal Sir Leicester Dedlock and Lady Honoria Dedlock (his junior by more than twenty years) live in the country home of Chesney Wold, next to Bleak House. Unbeknownst to Sir Dedlock, Lady Dedlock had a love child with Captain Hawdon prior to her marriage. The child was Esther Summerson. But Lady Dedlock was deceived into believing that her daughter had died, and does not know of Esther. Esther was brought up by Miss Barbary, sister of Lady Dedlock in a very Spartan manner. Esther does not know that Miss Barbary is actually her aunt, and believes that she is merely her godmother. When Miss Barbary dies, Mr.

Jarndyce becomes her guardian and sends her off to study at Reading for 6 years, then brings her to live with him at Bleak House to act as governess to two children, Richard and Ada Clare Carston, who are cousins to each other Ada and Richard are the beneficiaries (at least according to one version of the disputed will) of the inheritance which is the subject of the litigation, which has led to bitter infighting between the different factions of the Jarndyce family. According to another version of the will, John Jarndyce is the beneficiary. Richard and Ada are in love with each other; their guardian John Jarndyce does not object, but notes that Richard suffers from an inconstant character and so insists that before he can become engaged to Ada, he must enter into a profession and stick to it. Richard, after a series of failed attempts (studying to become a doctor, a lawyer and finally a soldier), decides to use his knowledge in the legal field, to win the disputed inheritance. In this he is opposed by John, who sees the curse in case family. Lady Dedlock is herself one of the possible beneficiaries under one of the many disputed variants of the will.

When her husband's lawyer, Tulkinghorn, brings an affidavit dealing with the case to the house, Lady Dedlock faints when she sees the handwriting on the document, which causes Tulkinghorn to investigate the reason. Tulkinghorn decides to track down the copyist who copied the affidavit (in an age before photocopying machines, all copies of legal documents were made by hand). He discovers that the man's name is an unfortunate named Nemo, who recently died in a rented apartment. Nemo was an opium addict and the only person who seems to know anything about him is vagabond named Jo. Meanwhile Lady Dedlock is also trying to identify the scribe, and to that end, takes the identity of a French maid in their household, Mademoiselle Hortense. Thus disguised, Lady Dedlock convinces Jo to take her to Nemo's grave. Tulkinghorn is convinced that Lady Dedlock's secret may pose a danger to the reputation of his client and so he begins to spy on Lady Dedlock, sometimes using the services of the real maid Hortense (not who appears to hate her mistress.

The Ghosts Walk Esther and Lady Dedlock meet by chance at a Mass and then have a conversation at Chesney Wold. Initially the two do not realize their family connection, but Lady Dedlock soon understands that her abandoned daughter is not dead. Esther now falls ill, apparently from the smallpox, and the illness leaves her permanently disfigured, and is cared for by Charley, a poor girl that she had saved from poverty and from whom she had probably contracted the disease. In a revealing conversation, Lady Dedlock confesses to Esther that she is her mother, but warns her, however, to keep this secret. Esther survives the illness but has now lost her beauty. Meanwhile Richard meanwhile spends all his resources to bring to conclusion the case Jarndyce and Jarndyce, in favor of him and Ada. He becomes obsessed with the case, and on the advice of his lawyer named Vholes, Richard has broken off his relationship with John Jarndyce, whom he now believes to be his opponent in the court case. Richard and Ada secretly marry and Richard spends all her money on legal expense. Ada also becomes pregnant. Esther herself has a secret passion for Dr.

Woodcourt, son of a family friend of John, who is also interested in her. Woodcourt, a ship's surgeon on various boat crossings to India, had met Esther before she was disfigured by the disease. On his return from the East, Woodcourt realizes that his feelings for Esther have not changed, but while he was away Esther had accepted a marriage proposal from her guardian, John Jarndyce. Hortense and Tulkinghorn have now discovered Lady Dedlock's past. After a quiet but desperate confrontation with the lawyer, Lady Dedlock flees the house and leaves a letter to her husband, begging forgiveness. Tulkinghorn dismisses Hortense, who is no longer useful. Feeling abandoned by both Tulkington and Lady Dedlock, Hortense kills Tulkington and attempts to place the blame on Lady Dedlock. Sir Leicester, upon learning of the death of his faithful lawyer and the flight of his wife, suffers a terrible blow that forces him to bed, but he tries to communicate to communicate with Lady Dedlock and tell her that he forgives her and is waiting for her to come back.

John Jarndyce Releases Esther from her Engagement Police Inspector Bucket, who has been investigating Nemo's death realizes that it is connected to the mystery of the Jarndyce case. Sir Leicester enlists Inspector Bucket to find Lady Dedlock. Although he suspects Lady Dedlock, Bucket arrests George Rouncewell, the last person to have been seen with Tulkinghorn the night of the murder and one of many people who had unfinished business with the deceased. Bucket is accompanied by Esther in his search for Lady Dedlock: they find her in the cemetery where Nemo is buried. It is revealed that Nemo was in fact Captain Hawdon. Unfortunately, she is already dead. In the meantime, a last and final will is found which cancels all previous wills. It appears that the court case can now at last be concluded. The bulk of the inheritance will go to Richard and Ada. John Jarndyce, meanwhile, frees Esther from the bond of engagement, understanding that she will be happier with Woodcourt. They all go to the final hearing: the litigation costs have consumed the entire amount of the inheritance and the court case can be concluded now that the estate is gone. Richard is hit very hard by the news and Dr.

Woodcourt realizes that Richard is now in the last stages of tuberculosis. John goes to the bedside of Richard, despite being estranged for years. Richard asks for John's forgiveness and then passes away. Shortly after Richard's death, Ada gives birth to a son, whom she names Richard, after his father. Mother and son are welcomed by John into his home. Esther and Woodcourt marry and go to live in Yorkshire, in a new Bleak House that John Jarndyce has given them. The newlyweds eventually have two children. There are a number of other parallel stories and characters in the book. One of the most amusing involves the story of Caddy Jellyby and her mother, obsessed with philanthropy that makes her lose sight of the interests and needs of her own family while working for the good of the inhabitants of an African village called Borrioboola-Gha). Mr. Tulkinghorn Mr. Tulkinghorn Bookmark this page Manage My Reading List Tulkinghorn, an extremely capable solicitor (a leading attorney) of the Chancery Court, is the main enemy, or antagonist, in this novel. He is an enigma which Dickens chooses not to solve.

As Sir Leicester's legal advisor, Tulkinghorn has a right, even a responsibility, to take notice of any action whatever that seems as if it might be detrimental to his client. Therefore, it is by no means unnatural or outrageous that he should wonder what his client's wife is up to when she begins to act strangely and make inquiries about the handwriting on a legal document. But Dickens himself neither makes this point not leaves it as an obvious inference. Tulkinghorn pursues the lady's secret so obsessively and ruthlessly that he gives the impression of desiring not so much protection of his client as power over the lady and the pleasure of inflicting pain. Tulkinghorn, an extremely capable solicitor (a leading attorney) of the Chancery Court, is the main enemy, or antagonist, in this novel. He is an enigma which Dickens chooses not to solve. As Sir Leicester's legal advisor, Tulkinghorn has a right, even a responsibility, to take notice of any action whatever that seems as if it might be detrimental to his client.

Therefore, it is by no means unnatural or outrageous that he should wonder what his client's wife is up to when she begins to act strangely and make inquiries about the handwriting on a legal document. But Dickens himself neither makes this point not leaves it as an obvious inference. Tulkinghorn pursues the lady's secret so obsessively and ruthlessly that he gives the impression of desiring not so much protection of his client as power over the lady and the pleasure of inflicting pain. Although a reader's rational sense might be better satisfied if Dickens had been more explicit about Tulkinghorn's motivations, we should remember that cruelly evil behavior is actually very hard to "explain." Should Dickens have indicated, at least, that somehow Lady Dedlock excited in the lawyer a compulsion to pursue and torture, a compulsion which he himself didn't understand? Or could one make a good case for the idea that the obscurity and irrationality of Tulkinghorn's behavior make it all the more mysterious and unpredictable and, therefore, all the more powerful in its impact on the reader? Does Dickens mean for us to see Tulkinghorn as not only a servant of Chancery but a symbol, an extension or personification of it?

If so, does he give that point sufficient emphasis that we can hardly miss it? When Tulkinghorn entraps Lady Dedlock, are we to think of Chancery as swallowing one more victim? On one matter, many readers will agree: our not knowing what makes the unfathomable Tulkinghorn tick takes nothing away from his archetypal power as a Devil figure, the Sinister One. Villains, Shysters, and Pettifoggers: The Lawyers and Law Clerks of Bleak House. – Mimi Matthews June 9, 2015 Charles Dickens, 1852. In my last article on Law and Literature , I discussed the workings of the early nineteenth century British Court of Chancery, both in reality and as portrayed by Charles Dickens in his magnificent novel, Bleak House. Such a serious subject in a work of fiction, especially one written in serial form for the Victorian masses, must necessarily be offset by a strong cast of characters with whom the reader can relate. As always, when it comes to depicting the frailties of human nature, Charles Dickens does not disappoint.

From the noble to the ridiculous, we are given a glimpse of the people whose lives have been touched by the infamous lawsuit of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. And none of them are more fascinating than the range of lawyers and law clerks that navigate (with varying degrees of skill) the murky waters of Chancery dysfunction. In light of the fact that we now know there were a few good attorneys around Chancery in that era, it is interesting to see that most of the legal professionals in Bleak House are sinister villains, shysters, or “narrow, mean, ignorant pettifoggers.” However, in this novel especially, Dickens is more satirist and caricaturist than impartial historian and his depictions of Mr. Tulkinghorn, Mr. Vholes, and Guppy the law clerk are written so masterfully that it is hard to take issue with any inaccuracy. “The Old Man of the Name of Tulkinghorn” by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne) for Bleak House, 1853. Image scan and text by George P. Landow. Mr.

Tulkinghorn, the esteemed attorney of Lord and Lady Dedlock, is respected by both the courts and the community. Instead of having “foggy glory” around his head, as does the Lord Chancellor, Tulkinghorn is “surrounded by a mysterious halo of family confidences” of which he is known to be the “silent depository.” He is compared to a mausoleum, except that, according to Dickens, mausoleums hold fewer secrets. Tulkinghorn has no life outside of the law. He is welcomed as a silent observer at the tables of fine country houses, but he “never converses when not professionally consulted.” He lives and works in what was once a great house of state and is now set off into chambers where “lawyers lie like maggots in nuts.” Everything within “that can have a lock has got one; no key is visible.” And, unlike the Court of Chancery which thrived on its scores of underlings, Tulkinghorn will have no clerk. He does not want to share a single confidence. He knows the value of his vault-like secrecy. In contrast to Tulkinghorn, Mr.

Vholes, the lawyer who eagerly dupes Richard Carstone into pursuing his rights in the Jarndyce case, does not appear to have ever been welcomed into anyone’s home – great or otherwise. In fact, Mr. Vholes freely admits that were he to partake of solid food in company, he wouldn’t know “what the consequences would be.” He is described as having a cold-blooded, gasping, fishlike manner and, in repose, of picking at “one of the red pimples on his yellow face with his black glove.” He confesses that he is not a “man of capital” and blames his depressed economic circumstances on the three daughters that he is raising at home. Mr. Vholes has his offices in a “little, pale, wall-eyed, woebegone inn, like a large dust-bin.” His office itself is squeezed into a tiny corner and “blinks at a dead wall.” The quarters are so small and cramped that the one clerk assisting Mr. Vholes can open the door without even getting up from the stool on which he sits.

“Attorney and Client: Fortitude and Impatience”by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne) for Bleak House, 1853. Image scan and text by George P. Landow. When Dickens describes the “three feet of knotty floored dark passage” that bring a potential client to Mr. Vholes’s “jet black door” it is easy to surmise what sort of desperate individual that poor fellow might be. Indeed, Mr. Vholes is only too happy to pursue Richard Carstone’s claim in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, despite it being common knowledge that it is a futile enterprise and that Carstone has no money. Mr. Vholes considers that the question of “Right and Wrong” is an extraneous consideration and that the only relevant question is “one of injury or advantage to that eminently respectable legion, Vholes.” At the close of the novel, when it is learned that Jarndyce and Jarndyce has been settled, but that the whole estate has been absorbed in costs, Mr.

Vholes immediately abandons Richard Carstone in the gallery and giving “one gasp as if he had swallowed the last morsel of his client” glides away through a door at the end of the hall. “The Young Man of the Name of Guppy”by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne) for Bleak House, 1853. Image scan and text by George P. Landow When it comes to law clerks, though Dickens was once himself a law clerk and might have spared a little kindness, instead he gives us Mr. Guppy. Guppy is, at best, a zealous clerk in the law firm of Kenge and Carboy. At worst, he is a grasping, pretentious, legal acolyte. So desperately does Guppy desire to be one of the legal elite that he cannot even divorce himself from legalese when proposing marriage to the woman he loves.

Before tendering his proposal to Esther Summerson, he asks for a guarantee that his statements will be in “total confidence” and taken “without prejudice.” Once assured that the communication will be confidential, he asks Esther if she would be so kind as to allow him to “file a declaration – to make an offer.” When Guppy later meets Esther, disfigured by small pox, he goes to great pains to make her understand how the law of contracts applies to his first offer of marriage: “I did myself the honor of making a declaration which…you was so good on that occasion as to repel and repudiate…such a declaration of my part was final, and there terminated.” “Magnanimous Conduct of Mr. Guppy” by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne) for Bleak House, 1853. Image scan and text by George P. Landow Guppy is so mindful of his legal aspirations, perhaps hoping to one day be a man like Tulkinghorn with no divide between his personal and professional life, that he chases Esther down the street, where she has met up with a friend of hers, only to have her repeat again her admissions in front of a witness.

When she states that there is “no proposal or promise of marriage whatsoever between this gentleman (and)” he quickly interjects “William Guppy of Penton Place, Pentonville in the county of Middlesex” so that she will repeat his name and address in full – for the record. Lincoln’s Inn (Old Hall, Chapel, and Chancery Court), 1830 by Thomas Shepherd. Mr. Tulkinghorn, Mr. Vholes, and Mr. Guppy are by no means the only legal professionals that Dickens has subjected to the sharp edge of his quill pen. Lawyers feature heavily in many of his novels. There is the law firm of Messrs. Dodson and Fogg in The Pickwick Papers. Mr. Sampson Brass in The Old Curiosity Shop. Mr. Jaggers in Great Expectations. And of course, barrister Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities. Complex characters all and while some of their qualities bear hints of truth (indeed, I believe I sat beside a Mr. Guppy in law school), they are still purely works of fiction – designed above all to entertain.

Works Referenced or Cited in this Article Bleak House (Vintage Classics): Amazon.co.uk: Charles Dickens: 9780307947192: Books Bleak House (Vintage Classics) Add all three to Basket One of these items is dispatched sooner than the other. Show details Buy the selected items together This item:Bleak House (Vintage Classics) by Charles Dickens Paperback Â£5.99 Only 1 left in stock. Sent from and sold by Amazon. FREE Delivery on orders over Â£10. Details The Old Curiosity Shop (Wordsworth Classics) by Charles Dickens Paperback Â£1.99 In stock. Sent from and sold by Amazon. FREE Delivery on orders over Â£10. Details David Copperfield (Wordsworth Classics) by Charles Dickens Paperback Â£1.99 In stock. Sent from and sold by Amazon. FREE Delivery on orders over Â£10. Details Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1 This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Apple To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number. or Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here , or download a FREE Kindle Reading App . Product details Publisher: Vintage Books; Vintage Classics ed. edition (20 Feb. 2012) Language: English Product Dimensions: 13.7 x 4.3 x 20.3 cm Average Customer Review: Product Description Review "Perhaps Bleak House""is his best novel. . . . When Dickens wrote""Bleak House he had grown up." --G. K. Chesterton "His best novel. . . . When Dickens wrote" Bleak House "he had grown up." --G. K. Chesterton His best novel. . . . When Dickens wrote" Bleak House "he had grown up. G. K. Chesterton" Book Description With an exclusive introduction by Peter Ackroyd, these out of print editions are brought back to life with a fresh and timeless new look.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. By omnigadrum on 31 Oct. 2005 Format: Paperback "Bleak House" opens with an astonishingly atmospheric description of a London fog … an imagery which has come to dominate our vision of 19th century London. Think how many films and television productions use this image! But fog, for Dickens, is not just a meteorological phenomena - it describes much of human life, particularly the actions and inactions of the law and lawyers which form the backbone to this novel. At the heart is the court case of Jarndyce versus Jarndyce, a family squabble which has dragged on for decades and kept many a lawyer in employment. Dickens slowly unravels this mystery for us. 'Bleak House' has a huge cast of characters and its plot is as extensive and complex as the London Underground system. It also employs a double narrative - one of the characters, Esther, acts as narrator and comments on the personal and emotional world of its characters, while an unnamed, third person narrator comments on the social and economic ills of the era. We get, therefore, a paralleling of the individual and the social.

The Court of Chancery and the aristocracy are presented as a social fog - deadening, confusing, misleading, a blight on the world. Dynamism comes from the individual's emotions, hopes and fears. While the impersonal narrator writes in the present tense and comments ironically on corruption, greed, abuses of power, and the plethora of social ills Dickens exposes and satirises in this work, Esther's account is written in the past tense, a diary reflecting on her life with optimism and hope. Dickens thus gives his reader a sense of the triumph of the individual - a comparatively lowly young woman - over the dead hand of an archaic, oppressive social system. Read more › BBC - Press Office - Bleak House Charles Dance Charles Dance plays Tulkinghorn Charles Dickens' Bleak House is a vivid portrayal of Victorian Britain: it is a compelling social commentary on 19th-century Britain, revealing London's poverty-stricken areas, warts and all. More than anything, however, it is a damning indictment on the legal system at that time. The central lawyer in Bleak House is Mr Tulkinghorn, a formidable character in many ways, who is played by Charles Dance.

Lawyer to Sir Leicester Dedlock and involved in the ongoing saga of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, in Andrew Davies' adaptation of the novel, Tulkinghorn is a force to be reckoned with. He's also desperate to unearth Lady Dedlock's secret past and is intent on making her life hell. "I think he's a complete s**t," laughs Dance, who plays the menacing lawyer. "He doesn't have a redeeming feature in his make-up. He's a snob, a social climber and a misogynist, really a very unpleasant man. "Jarndyce and Jarndyce is a case that's dragged on and on for a very long time and Tulkinghorn is relatively sure of the outcome. He is therefore able to spend more time delving into the private lives of the Dedlocks. "As far as he is concerned, Jarndyce and Jarndyce is a very long-winded piece of bread and butter, but this is something else.

This is more juicy for him to get his teeth into and he aims to bring down Lady Dedlock." As his family have been lawyers to the Dedlocks for generations, Tulkinghorn seems to think he knows what's best for Sir Leicester (played by Timothy West). "His father was attorney to Sir Leicester's father before him and he is attorney to Sir Leicester. He grovels in a quite subtle but unpleasant way to his betters. Tulkinghorn considers Lady Dedlock (Gillian Anderson) no better than he is, but she is clever. He looks upon Lady Dedlock as a gold-digger. She has no right to be where she is. "He has precious little time for her – she is only Lady Dedlock because she's married to Sir Leicester, and that's something that Tulkinghorn finds very difficult to deal with. If Tulkinghorn had his way, Sir Leicester would be a bachelor and he would be his confidante. Unfortunately, he married this woman and Tulkinghorn thought it was a mistake right away." The lawyer is in his element when he realises Lady Dedlock has something to hide and takes great pleasure in making her squirm.

The more he delves, the more afraid Lady Dedlock is and, soon, she is desperately trying to cover up her past. "He happens upon, or gets wind of, a piece of information that makes him very suspicious and I suspect, although there's no proof of it, that he has actually spent a considerable time waiting for an opportunity, for something to happen. "A stone is turned over that kind of reveals something nasty and provokes him to turn over a lot more stones. The more stones he turns over, the more he finds out about this secret of Lady Dedlock's past. And, really, that's where she'd prefer it to stay, but Tulkinghorn wants to open this up and get a hold over her. "He doesn't blackmail her to the point that he asks her for money, but what he does do is emotionally blackmail her." Dance is no stranger to Dickens, having played Ralph Nickleby in a TV version of The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby (2001). But, says Dance, the two adaptations are incomparable. "It wasn't on such a grand scale inasmuch that it wasn't divided into 15 half-hour episodes and it's not such a huge novel.

There wasn't quite such a labyrinth-like plot. "With Bleak House, the very title sums it up. It's not called Jarndyce And Jarndyce, it's not called The Trial Of Lady Dedlock and it's not called The Adventures Of Josiah Tulkinghorn. It's Bleak House. The very word 'bleak' is onomatopoeic for a start – you can't say bleak and think happy and jolly. Bleak is a bleak word – it tells you what you're in for. There's a lot of bleakness in Bleak House." Inspector Bucket Points the Way Inspector Bucket Points the Way Time and place cannot bind Mr. Bucket. Like man in the abstract, he is here to-day and gone to-morrow — but, very unlike man indeed, he is here again the next day. (Bleak House 654) Background kin to tracking, sleuthing comes naturally to man, whether from baser motives like curiosity and revenge, or from higher ones like maintaining order in a social group. Even the earliest known narratives, from classical and Biblical times, have some rudiments of whodunits (see Rzepka 16).

But the beginnings of the modern detective novel are generally traced to the French roman policier of the 1820s, and, around the time of the formal establishment of police forces in France and England, to the Newgate novels of the next decade. Oliver Twist (1838), partly set in the criminal underworld, and featuring a Police Magistrate, Bow Street officers, and an important court scene, belongs to this era, though detection is all of an amateur variety. Professional detectives, whether acting within the police force or as regular "private eyes," could emerge only when the profession itself was fully established. John Sutherland credits Edgar Allan Poe's Murders in the Rue Morgue (1843) with being "probably the first fully evolved detective story in English," and sees Inspector Bucket in Dickens's Bleak House (1852-53) as "the first police detective" in our fiction (180). Bucket is too much his own man to provide a blueprint; but, in more ways than one, he points the way towards his famous descendants. The Character and Role of Inspector Bucket Inspector Bucket in Dickens's Bleak House, by J.

Clayton Clarke ("Kyd"), displaying his "fat forefinger" (Bleak House, 654). Source: New York Public library Digital Gallery, digital ID 1206186, record ID 481098; slightly modified. Click on the image for a larger picture, and on all the other images here for more information. Inspector Bucket, as suggested by his rather comical name, makes it his business to dredge up all sorts of secrets — and is also a repository of many of the attributes later associated with fictional detectives. The most immediately noticeable of these is a certain indefinable "difference," or "otherness." He arrives on stage mysteriously: there is something "ghostly" about his first appearance. When the "stoutly built, steady-looking, sharp-eyed man in black, of about the middle-age" suddenly materialises in the lawyer Mr Tulkinghorn's room in Chapter XXII of the novel, the law-stationer Mr Snagsby, who is already there, wonders if he has come out of the cupboard, even though its hinges have not creaked, nor has a step been audible upon the floor" (282).

Heralded by this touch of magic, Bucket continues to have an enigmatic, unpredictable presence. With his "attentive face, and his hat and stick in his hands, and his hands behind him," he notices absolutely everything. Snagsby feels he looks at him as if he is "going to take his portrait" (282). His gimlet eyes may well reflect Dickens's interest in the development of photography, and his sense of its potential as well as its limitations for use in criminal cases (see Thomas 146). These eyes can certainly discomfit others: when Bucket proceeds to the slums of Tom-all-Alone's with Snagsby, police constables stare off into space as he passes by, and young blades, looking round when touched by his cane, simply vanish.

In himself, too, he possesses a singular power: with his "confidential manner, impossible to be evaded or declined" (326), he can get people like the kindly Snagsby to do his bidding, even, as the saying goes, to "come along" with him, whether innocent like George Rouncewell (suspect in the murder of the lawyer Mr Tulkinghorn), or guilty like Mademoiselle Hortense (Lady Dedlock's maid, the actual culprit). The latter case is the more extraordinary, with Bucket "enfolding and pervading her like a cloud, and hovering away with her as if he were a homely Jupiter and she the object of his affections" (683). "Friendly behaviour of Mr Bucket," by Phiz (Hablot K. Browne), 1853. George Rouncewell is visiting the Bagnets on the occasion of Mrs Bagnet's birthday when Mr Bucket drops in. Bucket takes two of the Bagnet children, Quebec and Malta, on his knee, saying "My name's Bucket. Ain't that a funny name?" (618).

He listens to their brother Woolwich, George's godson, playing the fife, and observes George carefully for signs of guilt, since he seems to have been there when Tulkinghorn was murdered. George (centre) is doing his best to be cheerful, but he has been deeply shocked by the sad death of Jo, the young crossing-sweeper. Chameleon-like, Bucket can fade right into the background, whether as an observer or as a "composed and quiet listener"(282), perhaps in the guise of a pedestrian in the street who "seems in some indefinable manner to lurk and lounge" (284). But he can change — pouf! — just like that. Much as he can suddenly veer in a different direction out of doors, he can become the very life and soul of a party indoors.

As the "sparkling stranger" who enlivens Mrs Bagnet's birthday gathering (620), for instance, he entertains everyone with a rendition of "Believe me, if all those endearing young charms." Yet, unbeknownst to them, he is about to pounce on one of their number; it is at the end of this very episode that he arrests the good-hearted George on suspicion of murdering Tulkinghorn. Bucket's geniality is not just assumed, but it does work to soften things up, and thus to catch people off their guard. Not exactly a trick, it nevertheless serves a purpose. With his "fondness for society and his adaptability to all grades" (662), he can insinuate himself into any company and capitalise on the confidence he inspires. Later, he even wins the respect of Sir Leicester Dedlock after his apocalyptic fit: "Of all men upon earth, Sir Leicester seems fallen from his high estate to place his sole trust and reliance upon this man" (701). Such is his standing that Bucket's own respect too is worth having.

This he bestows on the heroine of the novel, Esther Summerson, appreciating her calm good sense and conduct in difficult circumstances: "You're a pattern, you are," said Mr Bucket warmly, "You're a pattern" (736), and we are bound to agree with him. Bucket is undoubtedly special. He has a notable and often-noted characteristic: a large index finger, often "in an impressive state of action" (622). He counts off points on it, waves it in the air to emphasise what he says, prods people (like poor George) with it, and rubs it on his own face to sharpen his own senses. On the occasion of Tulkinghorn's funeral, Mr. Bucket and his fat forefinger are much in consultation together.... When Mr. Bucket has a matter of this pressing interest under his consideration, the fat forefinger seems to rise, to the dignity of a familiar demon. He puts it to his ears, and it whispers information; he puts it to his lips, and it enjoins him to secrecy; he rubs it over his nose, and it sharpens his scent; he shakes it before a guilty man, and it charms him to his destruction.

The Augurs of the Detective Temple invariably predict that when Mr. Bucket and that finger are in much conference, a terrible avenger will be heard of before long. (654) To a lesser extent, Bucket also has that trait of later detectives — including the lawyer Mr Pedgift, Senior, in Wilkie Collins's Armadale (1864-66) — of returning from the door with some clinching query: "Mr. Bucket makes his three bows and is withdrawing when a forgotten point occurs to him" (661). On this particular occasion, his question concerns the Reward-bill that Sir Leicester has posted on his own stairway. Does it suggest the possibility that someone in the household killed Tulkinghorn, or knew who did kill him? A moment later, Bucket is questioning the footman, quite productively, too. The Pursuit of Lady Dedlock: Left: "The Lonely Figure." Right: "The Night," both by Phiz (Hablot K. Browne), 1853. The ultimate source of Bucket's power over others, and over circumstances, is his intelligence. He is almost superhumanly quick on the uptake.

A look, or a gesture, or a word, can all be enough for him. Later, when the secret Tulkinghorn possessed is revealed, and with it Lady Dedlock's past, Sir Leicester is struck down by a seizure. He only has to look towards a small box, and Bucket understands at once, fetches the box for him, opens it with the particular key indicated (again, by the sick man's mere look), takes out and counts the money inside for his expenses, and intimates that he knows he can exceed that sum if necessary. With these funds, he knows, he is to exert himself to the utmost to find Lady Dedlock, who has fled the house. All this he does and understands with the speed of thought: "The velocity and certainty of Mr Bucket on all these heads is nothing short of miraculous" (701). His subsequent hot pursuit of the now desperate woman, on Sir Leicester's but also Esther's behalf as Lady Dedlock's illegitimte daughter, is guided by all the clues he has picked up about her, and is able to pick up now. Literally as well as metaphorically, Bucket's sense of direction is exceptional.

Having failed to catch up with his quarry, and finally realising that he has been chasing someone wearing her dress rather than the woman herself, he finds the complicated way back to London with extraordinary ease. "The steadiness and confidence with which he had directed our journey back, I could not account for," says Esther, ensconced on the carriage with him as they search for her benighted mother (735). For these reasons, we too feel drawn to him. As Peter Thoms says, "in the dark, perplexing world of Bleak House he is a guide we would like to trust" (94). It has to be said that Bucket enjoys the chase. On their tiring and anxious journey, Esher, sensitive and intelligent in her own way, notes that he is "kept fresh by a certain enjoyment of the work in which he is engaged" (718). To enjoy ferreting out people's deepest secrets, often much to the detriment of their relationships and reputation, if not to their very lives, suggests hardness of heart.

Yet even as he unfolds his satisfyingly "beautiful case" to Sir Leicester (660), he does seem to exhibit a "touch of compassion" for the once arrogant man (665). Bucket is not unfeeling. He has already shown himself capable of kindness. On his earlier visit with Snagsby to the bricklayers' wives in Tom-all-Alone's (the dreadful slum shown on the right, in another illustration by Phiz), there was a touching scene in which he took an interest in a tiny baby: "He is not at all rough about it; and ... turns his light gently on the infant" (287), causing Mr. Snagsby to think of the haloed infant Jesus. To Esther herself Bucket is from the start "really very kind and gentle," impressing her from the outset of their mission to find her mother with his "sagacity" (708). On the whole, says the narrator, he is "a benignant philosopher not disposed to be severe upon the follies of mankind" (654), and is perfectly justified in telling Esther's guardian Mr Jarndyce that he has a "humane heart" (704).

Not unexpectedly, then, though he is often away from home, Bucket is a married man. He is not a solitary person, as most later detectives are, nor does he need a companion to situate him in the everyday world, or serve as his foil, as they so often do. A solid middle-class man, he is not only married, but happily married too. In this respect he is a perfectly fit representative of the "emerging bourgeois class of experts" (Thomas 12). He is both fond of and proud of his wife, calling her "a woman in fifty thousand — in a hundred and fifty thousand!" (680). For Mrs Bucket, we learn, is a true helpmeet, an amateur detective in her own right. Her husband is able to make full use of her skills. For example, on the day of the lawyer's funeral, he himself keeps a sly look-out from a carriage, while stationing her on the steps of Mr Tulkinghorn's house beside the couple's mysterious lodger: "And there you are, my partner, eh?" says Mr. Bucket to himself, apostrophizing Mrs. Bucket, stationed, by his favour, on the steps of the deceased's house.

"And so you are. And so you are! And very well indeed you are looking, Mrs. Bucket!" ... "And our lodger with you!"(655) Mrs Bucket's surveillance will prove immensely helpful to him. As others have pointed out, her involvement in her detective husband's work is unusual in the annals of detective fiction, and will remain so (see Thomas 306, n. 25). Bucket is human enough, then, and a part of this is that he is fallible. One instance of this is his arrest of Mr George — though it is doubtful that he ever really suspects him, or suspects him for long. More worryingly and disastrously, Lady Dedlock manages to trick him for quite a while simply by changing into unlikely attire. However, he is undeterred by setbacks. After intelligence (the sine qua non of a detective), his most important quality is perseverance. He works pertinaciously to get at the truth, whatever it is, and eventually does uncover it, whatever the consequences.

When he does so, he can, if appropriate, hold court and quash the opposition, as when he finally clears away unwelcome visitors, and arrests Mademoiselle Hortense for Tulkinghorn's murder in the presence of Sir Leicester. Revealing that the Frenchwoman was his mysterious lodger, that his wife has been spying on her, and that she has indeed incriminated herself, he could be any latter-day detective presenting "the array of events leading up to the crime and the array of events by which the detective himself arrived at the correct sequence of the first array" (Rzpeka 19). He is almost like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat in front of an audience, albeit, now, only Sir Leicester. Though Dickens himself denied it, there is much to suggest that Bucket was based on a real person with whom he had struck up a friendship, Inspector Charles Frederick Field [1805-74] of the Metropolitan Police, who later became a private detective (see Hawes 30-31).

The most telling evidence comes from Dickens's Household Words essay of 27 July 1850, "A Detective Police party," in which Inspector "Wield" is described as having "a habit of emphasising his conversation by the aid of a corpulent forefinger, which is constantly in juxta-position with his eyes and nose" (409). Field, who had been involved in amateur dramatics (see Ackroyd 326), tells a lively tale, with great relish, in the essay. Dickens hardly needed such help, but Bucket's grounding in reality might have been an element in producing a credible as well as a somewhat mysterious and exaggerated character. It may even have contributed to this character's occupying his groundbreaking role in the history of detective fiction. The Future Mr Bucket is an inspirational detective, then — perhaps especially in his "confident showmanship in unfolding his case," a showmanship so confident and so mesmerising that it "reminds us of the authorial mastery of Dickens himself" (Thoms 94). But can we call the work in which he features a detective novel? No, surely not. Too much else is happening in it, including the whole Chancery plot.

With its reflections on the law, on philanthropy, on the whole spectrum of human behaviour, Bleak House is too rich and complex in theme to be identified simply by its detective element. T. S. Eliot considered Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone , featuring Sergeant Cuff of Scotland Yard, "the first and greatest of English detective novels" (464). But Collins too painted a large canvas with a broader palette, and the work is more usefully seen as an example of sensation fiction . More recently, The Moonstone has also been interpreted as a critique of imperialism . Similar points may be made about other mid-Victorian novels featuring detectives, such as Mrs Henry Wood's The Channings (1862) and Roland Yorke (1869), in which Jonas Butterby's role adds spice to the plots but contributes little to the author's religious theme. But there is more to this question than simply a superabundance of narrative threads or themes in these works. There is the question of what specifically constitutes a detective story. Granting the reader access to information essential to solving the mystery is thought by many modern readers and critics (at least nowadays) to by crucial to stories of detection.

Just as crucial, to those holding this view, is withholding from the readers for as long as possible the complete solution to the mystery. (Rzepka 11) Bleak House fails these tests in each of the two important mysteries in the plot. Too many clues are given in the case of Lady Dedlock's past: in Chapter VII the ghost of the Dedlocks' house has already begun to walk; in Chapter XXIX, the law clerk Mr Guppy, who was much struck by Lady Dedlock's portrait in that earlier chapter, brings to her (and our) attention her likeness to Esther. On the other hand, Bucket reveals important evidence about Tulkinghorn's murder, from his wife's surveillance of Mademoiselle Hortense, only after the case has been solved. Peter Keating is surely right to point out that it was not until the late Victorian period that "literary specialisation began to divide popular fiction into distinctive sub-genres" (341), and that novels appeared to which these tests can be more successfully applied. Sherlock Holmes would make his triumphant entrance in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Study in Scarlet only in 1887. References Ackroyd, Peter. Dickens.

London: Vintage, 2012. Print. Dickens, Charles. Bleak House. London: Penguin Popular Classics, 1994. Print. _____. "A Detective Police Party." Household Words . Vol 1, No. 18. 27 July 1850. 409-414. Internet Archive. Web. 2 December 2013. Eliot, T. S. "Wilkie Collins and Dickens" (1927). Selected Essays. 3rd ed. London: Faber, 1951. 460-70. Print. Hawes, Donald. Who's Who in Dickens. Oxford: Routledge, 2002. Print. Keating, Peter. The Haunted Study: A Social History of the English Novel, 1875-1914. London: Secker & Warburg, 1989. Print. Rzepka, Charles J. Detective Fiction. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005. Print. Sutherland, John. The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction. London: Longman, 1988.

Print. Thomas, Ronald R. Detective Fiction and the Rise of Forensic Science. Pbk ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Print. Thoms, Peter. Detection and Its Designs: Narrative and Power in 19th-century Detective Fiction. Athens, OH.: University of Ohio Press, 1998. Print. Bleak House by Charles Dickens | PenguinRandomHouse.com Add to Cart About Bleak House One of Charles Dickens’s most critically admired novels, this story of a monumental and life-consuming court case features one of his most vast and varied casts of colorful characters. In Bleak House, competing claims of love and inheritance—complicated by murder—have given rise to a costly and decades-long legal battle that one litigant refers to as “the family curse.” The insidious London fog that rises from the river Thames and seeps into the very bones of the characters symbolizes the pervasive corruption of the legal system and the society that supports it, targets of Dickens’s satirical wrath.

Displaying Dickens’s familiar panoramic sweep and brilliant characters—including the mysterious orphan Esther Summerson, her gentle guardian John Jarndyce, the haughty Lady Dedlock, and the scheming lawyer Mr. Tulkinghorn—the novel is also a bold experimental narrative that unforgettably dramatizes our most basic human conflicts. About Bleak House Widely regarded as Dickens’s masterpiece, Bleak House centers on the generations-long lawsuit Jarndyce and Jarndyce, through which “whole families have inherited legendary hatreds.” Focusing on Esther Summerson, a ward of John Jarndyce, the novel traces Esther’s romantic coming-of-age and, in classic Dickensian style, the gradual revelation of long-buried secrets, all set against the foggy backdrop of the Court of Chancery. Mixing romance, mystery, comedy, and satire, Bleak House limns the suffering caused by the intricate inefficiency of the law. 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.

About Bleak House Widely regarded as Dickens’s masterpiece, Bleak House centers on the generations-long lawsuit Jarndyce and Jarndyce, through which “whole families have inherited legendary hatreds.” Focusing on Esther Summerson, a ward of John Jarndyce, the novel traces Esther’s romantic coming-of-age and, in classic Dickensian style, the gradual revelation of long-buried secrets, all set against the foggy backdrop of the Court of Chancery. Mixing romance, mystery, comedy, and satire, Bleak House limns the suffering caused by the intricate inefficiency of the law. About Bleak House The complex story of a notorious law-suit in which love and inheritance are set against the classic urban background of 19th-century London, where fog on the river, seeping into the very bones of the characters, symbolizes the corruption of the legal system and the society which supports it. “Jarndyce and Jarndyce” is an infamous lawsuit that has been in process for generations. Nobody can remember exactly how the case started but many different individuals have found their fortunes caught up in it.

Esther Summerson watches as her friends and neighbours are consumed by their hopes and disappointments with the proceedings. But while the intricate puzzles of the lawsuit are being debated by lawyers, other more dramatic mysteries are unfolding that involve heartbreak, lost children, blackmail and murder. The fog and cold that permeate Bleak House mirror a Victorian England mired in spiritual insolvency. Dickens brought all his passion, brilliance, and narrative verve to this huge novel of lives entangled in a multi-generational lawsuit—and through it, he achieved, at age 41, a stature almost Shakespearean. Introduction by Barbara Hardy About Bleak House Widely regarded as Dickens’s masterpiece, Bleak House centers on the generations-long lawsuit Jarndyce and Jarndyce, through which “whole families have inherited legendary hatreds.” Focusing on Esther Summerson, a ward of John Jarndyce, the novel traces Esther’s romantic coming-of-age and, in classic Dickensian style, the gradual revelation of long-buried secrets, all set against the foggy backdrop of the Court of Chancery. Mixing romance, mystery, comedy, and satire, Bleak House limns the suffering caused by the intricate inefficiency of the law.

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. About Bleak House Widely regarded as Dickens’s masterpiece, Bleak House centers on the generations-long lawsuit Jarndyce and Jarndyce, through which “whole families have inherited legendary hatreds.” Focusing on Esther Summerson, a ward of John Jarndyce, the novel traces Esther’s romantic coming-of-age and, in classic Dickensian style, the gradual revelation of long-buried secrets, all set against the foggy backdrop of the Court of Chancery. Mixing romance, mystery, comedy, and satire, Bleak House limns the suffering caused by the intricate inefficiency of the law. Get the news you want from Penguin Random House Praise “His best novel. . . . When Dickens wrote Bleak House he had grown up.” —G. K. Chesterton About Charles Dickens Charles Dickens was born in a little house in Landport, Portsea, England, on February 7, 1812.

The second of eight children, he grew up in a family frequently beset by financial insecurity. At age eleven, Dickens was taken out of… More about Charles Dickens About Charles Dickens Charles Dickens was born in a little house in Landport, Portsea, England, on February 7, 1812. The second of eight children, he grew up in a family frequently beset by financial insecurity. At age eleven, Dickens was taken out of… More about Charles Dickens About Charles Dickens Charles Dickens was born in a little house in Landport, Portsea, England, on February 7, 1812. The second of eight children, he grew up in a family frequently beset by financial insecurity. At age eleven, Dickens was taken out of… More about Charles Dickens About Charles Dickens Charles Dickens was born in a little house in Landport, Portsea, England, on February 7, 1812. The second of eight children, he grew up in a family frequently beset by financial insecurity. At age eleven, Dickens was taken out of… More about Charles Dickens About Charles Dickens Charles Dickens was born in a little house in Landport, Portsea, England, on February 7, 1812.

The second of eight children, he grew up in a family frequently beset by financial insecurity. At age eleven, Dickens was taken out of… More about Charles Dickens About Charles Dickens Charles Dickens was born in a little house in Landport, Portsea, England, on February 7, 1812. The second of eight children, he grew up in a family frequently beset by financial insecurity. At age eleven, Dickens was taken out of… More about Charles Dickens Product Details

Question: In which Dickens novel is 'Mr. Tulkinghorn' the lawyer of the 'Dedlock' family?
Answer: 'BLEAK HOUSE'