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Bleak House

ANN RONALD (ESSAY DATE SEPTEMBER 1975)

SOURCE: Ronald, Ann. "Dickens' Gloomiest Gothic Castle." Dickens Studies Newsletter 6, no. 3 (September 1975): 71-5.

In the following essay, Ronald traces Dickens's use of the Gothic in Bleak House.

In most eighteenth-century Gothic novels the physical setting was key. The enormous, often ruined medieval castle, filled with gloomy, mysterious interiors, internally connected by labyrinthine passageways and externally obscured by mists and fog, fascinated readers of Mrs. Radcliffe's age. When following generations lost interest in the Gothic novel, the Gothic castle per se began disappearing, but the imagery used to describe such buildings remained useful. Nineteenth-century novelists often borrowed the ruined building, the twisting passages, the darkened interiors, the obscuring powers of fog, and transformed them to suit their own...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Primary Sources
   1. Charles Dickens (Story Date 1836–1837)
4. General Commentary
   1. Julian Wolfreys (Essay Date 2000)
5. Title Commentary
   1. Bleak House
   2. Great Expectations
   3. Little Dorrit
6. Further Reading

1. Charles Dickens