On a fog-enshrouded day in November, the Lord Chancellor sits in the Court of Chancery hearing another presentation on the interminable case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, which involves a contested series of wills from several generations past. An old woman sits in the chamber, as she does every day, following the arguments of the cases brought before the court. The Lord Chancellor begs Mr. Tangle, leading expert on Jarndyce and Jarndyce, to save his information for later because he must deal with two wards of the court, involved in the case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, who are seeking to be placed with their distant cousin.

Lady Dedlock has come up to London from her country estate in Lincolnshire because the rainy weather there has caused her to feel “bored to death.” She and her husband, Sir Leicester (who is twenty years her senior and married her for love rather than position, of which she had none), are on their way to Paris. Mr. Tulkinghorn, Sir Leicester’s attorney, comes to present news about Jarndyce and Jarndyce, on which Lady Dedlock has a distant claim. Lady Dedlock listens to Mr. Tulkinghorn read from the proceedings but begs him to skip as much of the legal jargon as possible. She notices the handwriting on the legal papers and asks Mr. Tulkinghorn if it is called a “legal hand.” Mr. Tulkinghorn informs her that it is merely the handwriting of the scribe who was hired to make the copies. He notices that Lady Dedlock suddenly looks faint. She excuses herself and goes to her bed chamber. Sir Leicester is concerned because he has never before seen his wife swoon.

Esther Summerson presents her own story as that of an orphan reared by her godmother, Miss Barbary. Esther has no friends except her doll, though she attends school with other girls. On her birthday, Esther asks her godmother about her mother. Miss Barbary tells Esther that her mother is her disgrace, and she is her mother’s disgrace. When Esther is fourteen, Miss Barbary has a stroke and dies as Esther is reading to her about Christ forgiving the woman caught in adultery. A Mr. Conversation Kenge presents himself to Esther to tell her that a Mr. Jarndyce has named himself her benefactor and is sending her to a good school. On the way to the school, a stranger in the coach comforts Esther.

After six years, Esther receives a letter from Mr. Kenge, stating that Mr. Jarndyce had arranged that she be a companion to a young ward of the court. Esther goes to London and meets Miss Ada Clare and Ada’s distant cousin Richard Carstone, both of whom are claimants of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. The three of them are to live with Mr. Jarndyce at his Herefordshire home called Bleak House. Mr. Guppy, Mr. Kenge’s employee, helps the three young people to the home of Mrs. Jellyby, where they will be spending the night. Mrs. Jellyby’s full attention is taken up with the natives in Africa, so her children are left unattended. That night, Caddy Jellyby comes to Esther’s room. She expresses her wish that Africa as well as she and her entire family were dead. Esther comforts her and listens to her dissatisfaction with her family life.