Bleak House

Bleak House opens in the fog of London around the Court of Chancery, where the inheritance suit Jarndyce and Jarndyce has dragged on for generations and swallowed fortunes along the way. Two narrators share the telling: an unnamed voice in the present tense that moves from the law courts to Chesney Wold, the Lincolnshire estate of Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, and Esther Summerson, an orphan looking back on her own life.

Esther comes to Bleak House in Hertfordshire as companion to Ada Clare, one of two young wards in the suit, alongside Ada's cousin Richard Carstone, under the care of their kind guardian John Jarndyce. In London, the Dedlocks' lawyer, Mr Tulkinghorn, notices Lady Dedlock's reaction to the handwriting on a legal document and quietly sets out to learn why.

Dickens first published the novel in twenty monthly parts between March 1852 and September 1853, with illustrations by Phiz. Its satire of the Chancery courts, its crowd of characters from the crossing-sweeper Jo to Inspector Bucket, and its detective plot have made it one of his most admired books.