Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History

Bleak House

Open Original Text

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Bleak House
 
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Bleak House

Author: Charles Dickens

 
Release date: August 1, 1997 [eBook #1023]
 Most recently updated: March 11, 2026

Language: English

Original publication: S.l.: s.n., 1853

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1023

Credits: Donald Lainson, Toronto, Canada and revised by Thomas Berger and Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLEAK HOUSE ***

BLEAK HOUSE

by

CHARLES DICKENS

CONTENTS

 Preface
 I. In Chancery
 II. In Fashion
 III. A Progress
 IV. Telescopic Philanthropy
 V. A Morning Adventure
 VI. Quite at Home
 VII. The Ghost's Walk
 VIII. Covering a Multitude of Sins
 IX. Signs and Tokens
 X. The Law-Writer
 XI. Our Dear Brother
 XII. On the Watch
 XIII. Esther's Narrative
 XIV. Deportment
 XV. Bell Yard
 XVI. Tom-all-Alone's
 XVII. Esther's Narrative
 XVIII. Lady Dedlock
 XIX. Moving On
 XX. A New Lodger
 XXI. The Smallweed Family
 XXII. Mr. Bucket
 XXIII. Esther's Narrative
 XXIV. An Appeal Case
 XXV. Mrs. Snagsby Sees It All
 XXVI. Sharpshooters
 XXVII. More Old Soldiers Than One
 XXVIII. The Ironmaster
 XXIX. The Young Man
 XXX. Esther's Narrative
 XXXI. Nurse and Patient
 XXXII. The Appointed Time
 XXXIII. Interlopers
 XXXIV. A Turn of the Screw
 XXXV. Esther's Narrative
 XXXVI. Chesney Wold
 XXXVII. Jarndyce and Jarndyce
 XXXVIII. A Struggle
 XXXIX. Attorney and Client
 XL. National and Domestic
 XLI. In Mr. Tulkinghorn's Room
 XLII. In Mr. Tulkinghorn's Chambers
 XLIII. Esther's Narrative
 XLIV. The Letter and the Answer
 XLV. In Trust
 XLVI. Stop Him!
 XLVII. Jo's Will
 XLVIII. Closing In
 XLIX. Dutiful Friendship
 L. Esther's Narrative
 LI. Enlightened
 LII. Obstinacy
 LIII. The Track
 LIV. Springing a Mine
 LV. Flight
 LVI. Pursuit
 LVII. Esther's Narrative
 LVIII. A Wintry Day and Night
 LIX. Esther's Narrative
 LX. Perspective
 LXI. A Discovery
 LXII. Another Discovery
 LXIII. Steel and Iron
 LXIV. Esther's Narrative
 LXV. Beginning the World
 LXVI. Down in Lincolnshire
 LXVII. The Close of Esther's Narrative

PREFACE

A Chancery judge once had the kindness to inform me, as one of a
company of some hundred and fifty men and women not labouring under
any suspicions of lunacy, that the Court of Chancery, though the
shining subject of much popular prejudice (at which point I thought
the judge's eye had a cast in my direction), was almost immaculate.
There had been, he admitted, a trivial blemish or so in its rate of
progress, but this was exaggerated and had been entirely owing to the
"parsimony of the public," which guilty public, it appeared, had been
until lately bent in the most determined manner on by no means
enlarging the number of Chancery judges appointed-I believe by
Richard the Second, but any other king will do as well.

This seemed to me too profound a joke to be inserted in the body of
this book or I should have restored it to Conversation Kenge or to
Mr. Vholes, with one or other of whom I think it must have
originated. In such mouths I might have coupled it with an apt
quotation from one of Shakespeare's sonnets:

 "My nature is subdued
 To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:
 Pity me, then, and wish I were renewed!"

But as it is wholesome that the parsimonious public should know what
has been doing, and still is doing, in this connexion, I mention here
that everything set forth in these pages concerning the Court of
Chancery is substantially true, and within the truth. The case of
Gridley is in no essential altered from one of actual occurrence,
made public by a disinterested person who was professionally
acquainted with the whole of the monstrous wrong from beginning to
end. At the present moment (August, 1853) there is a suit before the
court which was commenced nearly twenty years ago, in which from
thirty to forty counsel have been known to appear at one time, in
which costs have been incurred to the amount of seventy thousand
pounds, which is A FRIENDLY SUIT, and which is (I am assured) no
nearer to its termination now than when it was begun. There is
another well-known suit in Chancery, not yet decided, which was
commenced before the close of the last century and in which more than
double the amount of seventy thousand pounds has been swallowed up in
costs. If I wanted other authorities for Jarndyce and Jarndyce, I
could rain them on these pages, to the shame of-a parsimonious
public.

There is only one other point on which I offer a word of remark. The
possibility of what is called spontaneous combustion has been denied
since the death of Mr. Krook; and my good friend Mr. Lewes (quite
mistaken, as he soon found, in supposing the thing to have been
abandoned by all authorities) published some ingenious letters to me
at the time when that event was chronicled, arguing that spontaneous
combustion could not possibly be. I have no need to observe that I do
not wilfully or negligently mislead my readers and that before I
wrote that description I took pains to investigate the subject. There
are about thirty cases on record, of which the most famous, that of
the Countess Cornelia de Baudi Cesenate, was minutely investigated
and described by Giuseppe Bianchini, a prebendary of Verona,
otherwise distinguished in letters, who published an account of it at
Verona in 1731, which he afterwards republished at Rome. The
appearances, beyond all rational doubt, observed in that case are the
appearances observed in Mr. Krook's case. The next most famous
instance happened at Rheims six years earlier, and the historian in
that case is Le Cat, one of the most renowned surgeons produced by
France. The subject was a woman, whose husband was ignorantly
convicted of having murdered her; but on solemn appeal to a higher
court, he was acquitted because it was shown upon the evidence that
she had died the death of which this name of spontaneous combustion
is given. I do not think it necessary to add to these notable facts,
and that general reference to the authorities which will be found at
page 30, vol. ii.,* the recorded opinions and experiences of
distinguished medical professors, French, English, and Scotch, in
more modern days, contenting myself with observing that I shall not
abandon the facts until there shall have been a considerable
spontaneous combustion of the testimony on which human occurrences
are usually received.**

In Bleak House I have purposely dwelt upon the romantic side of
familiar things.

1853

 *Transcriber's note. This referred to a specific page in
 the printed book. In this Project 

Next