Bleak House

Widely regarded as Dickens’s masterpiece, <b>Bleak House</b> centers on the generations-long lawsuit Jarndyce and Jarndyce, through which “whole families have inherited legendary hatreds.” Focusing on Esther Summerson, a ward of John Jarndyce, the novel traces Esther’s romantic coming-of-age and, in classic Dickensian style, the gradual revelation of long-buried secrets, all set against the foggy backdrop of the Court of Chancery. Mixing romance, mystery, comedy, and satire, <b>Bleak House</b> limns the suffering caused by the intricate inefficiency of the law. <br><br>The text of this Modern Library Paperback Classic was set from the first single-volume edition, published by Bradbury &amp; Evans in 1853, and reproduces thirty-nine of H. K. Browne’s original illustrations for the book.