Bleak House - by Charles Dickens

About the Book

Dickens' famous satirical novel about family greed and corruption in the British court system, with an afterword by David Stuart Davies and original illustrations by H.K. Browne.

Book Synopsis

Designed to appeal to the book lover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautifully bound pocket-sized gift editions of much loved classic titles. Bound in real cloth, printed on high quality paper, and featuring ribbon markers and gilt edges, Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure. This edition has an afterword by David Stuart Davies and original illustrations by H.K. Browne.

At the court of Chancery the inheritance case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce has been going on for generations, but a new piece of evidence might end it once and for all.

The interminable lawsuit encompasses so many diverse characters in its thrall, including Esther Summerson, the heroine of the novel and one of Dickens' more feisty and characterful leading ladies. We are drawn in and fascinated by the complex set of relationships at all levels of society, from Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, cocooned in their stately home in Lincolnshire, to Jo, the crossing sweeper in the hell hole known as Tom-All-Alone's. In none of Charles Dickens' other novels is the canvas broader, the sweep more inclusive, the linguistic texture richer and the gallery of comic grotesques more extraordinary. Bleak House is not only a love story and a tightly plotted murder mystery, but also a condemnation of the corruption at the heart of English society.

About the Author

Charles Dickens was born in 1812 near Portsmouth, where his father worked as a clerk. Living in London in 1824, Dickens was sent by his family to work in a blacking-warehouse, and his father was arrested and imprisoned for debt. Fortunes improved and Dickens returned to school, eventually becoming a parliamentary reporter. His first piece of fiction was published by a magazine in December 1832, and by 1836 he had begun his first novel, The Pickwick Papers. He focused his career on writing, completing fourteen highly successful novels, as well as penning journalism, shorter fiction and travel books. He died in 1870.