Bleak House | Bleak House

At a glance:

Author: Charles Dickens
First Published: 1852
Type of Work: Novel
Type of Plot: Social morality
Time of Work: Mid-nineteenth century
Setting: London, Lincolnshire, and Hertfordshire, England
Genres: Long fiction, Social realism
Subjects: Murder or homicide, Nineteenth century, Social issues, England or English people, Blackmail, Lower classes, Inheritance or succession, Lawyers, Moral conditions, Mysteries, Victorian era or Victorianism, Courts or courtrooms
Locales: London, England, Hertfordshire, England, Lincolnshire, England

John Jarndyce, the unmarried, aging owner of Bleak House and a party in the famous and protracted Chancery suit of Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce. Generous to a fault, he makes two young cousins, Ada Clare and Richard Carstone, his wards in the hope that they will fall in love and fill his ancestral home with renewed life. He also takes into his home an orphan, Esther Summerson, as a companion to Ada. He himself falls in love with Esther, but when he learns that she is in love with Allan Woodcourt, a young surgeon, he releases her from her promise to him and...

Bleak House | Bleak House

At a glance:

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