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Bleak House

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Book Summary

Charles Dickens Biography

About Bleak House

Summary, Analysis, and Original Text by Chapter

Chapter 1: In Chancery
Chapter 2: In Fashion
Chapter 3: A Process
Chapter 4: Telescopic Philanthropy
Chapter 5: A Morning Adventure
Chapter 6: Quite at Home
Chapter 7: The Ghost's Walk
Chapter 8: Covering a Multitude of Sins
Chapter 9: Signs and Tokens
Chapters 10–11: The Law Writer & Our Dead Brother
Chapter 12: On the Watch
Chapter 13: Esther's Narrative
Chapter 14: Deportment
Chapter 15: Bell Yard
Chapter 16: Tom-all-Alone's
Chapter 17: Esther's Narrative
Chapter 18: Lady Dedlock
Chapter 19: Moving On
Chapters 20–21: A New Lodger & The Smallweed Family
Chapter 22: Mr. Bucket
Chapter 23: Esther's Narrative
Chapter 24: An Appeal Case
Chapter 25: Mrs. Snagsby Sees It All
Chapter 26: Sharpshooters
Chapter 27: More Old Soldiers Than One
Chapter 28: The Ironmaster
Chapter 29: The Young Man
Chapter 30: Esther's Narrative
Chapter 31: Nurse and Patient
Chapter 32: The Appointed Time
Chapter 33: Interlopers
Chapter 34: A Turn of the Screw
Chapter 35: Esther's Narrative
Chapter 36: Chesney Wold
Chapter 37: Jarndyce and Jarndyce
Chapter 38: A Struggle
Chapter 39: Attorney and Client
Chapter 40: National and Domestic
Chapter 41: In Mr. Tulkinghorn's Room
Chapter 42: In Mr. Tulkinghorn's Chambers
Chapter 43: Esther's Narrative
Chapter 44: The Letter and the Answer
Chapter 45: In Trust
Chapter 46: Stop Him!
Chapter 47: Jo's Will
Chapter 48: Closing In
Chapter 49: Dutiful Friendship
Chapter 50: Esther's Narrative
Chapter 51: Enlightened
Chapter 52: Obstinacy
Chapters 53–54: The Track & Springing a Mine
Chapter 55: Flight
Chapter 56: Pursuit
Chapter 57: Esther's Narrative
Chapter 58: A Wintry Day and Night
Chapter 59: Esther's Narrative
Chapter 60: Perspective
Chapter 61: A Discovery
Chapter 62: Another Discovery
Chapter 63: Steel and Iron
Chapter 64: Esther's Narrative
Chapters 65–66: Beginning in the World & Down in Lincolnshire
Chapter 67: The Close of Esther's Narrative

Character List

Character Analysis

Lady Dedlock
Esther Summerson
John Jarndyce
Mr. Tulkinghorn
Richard Carstone
Ada Clare
Sir Leicester Dedlock

Critical Essays

Characterization in Bleak House
Theme of Bleak House
Technique and Style in Bleak House
Plot of Bleak House
Setting of Bleak House
The Fog
Symbolism in Bleak House

Study and Homework Help

Quiz
Essay Questions

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Charles Dickens Biography

In 1829, Dickens fell in love with Maria Beadnell, an attractive and vivacious but rather snobbish and hard-hearted banker's daughter. To better his chance with her, he began looking for a better paying and more prestigious position. In 1832, he went strongly into journalism, becoming a Parliamentary reporter for the Mirror of Parliament and a general reporter for the True Sun. Maria Beadnell found Dickens somewhat interesting but never took him seriously as a suitor. After four years, Dickens gave up on her, but the loss was a crushing and long-enduring sorrow. Dickens' best biographer, Edgar Johnson, says that "All the imagination, romance, passion, and aspiration of his nature she had brought into flower and she would never be separated from." Knowing that his failure to win Maria was largely due to his low social standing and poor financial prospects, Dickens became more determined than ever to make a name for himself and a fortune to go with it.

Prospects brightened almost at once. He had been writing some sketches of London life, and several of these were accepted and published by the Monthly Magazine and the Evening Chronicle. In March 1834, Dickens landed a job as a reporter for the important Whig (liberal) newspaper, the Morning Chronicle. Journalism kept him in practice with the written word and forced him to observe closely and report accurately; it was excellent training for a man who saw more and more clearly that he wanted to make his mark in literature. Early in 1836, Dickens' collected pieces were published as Sketches by Boz. The book was very favorably reviewed, sold well, and went through three editions by 1837.

A month after the appearance of this book, Dickens published the initial part of his first novel, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Immensely successful, Pickwick established Dickens at once as the most popular writer in England. He left the Morning Chronicle and became the editor of Bentley's Miscellany, a magazine in which Oliver Twist was published in installments beginning in February 1837. On April 2,1836, Dickens married Catherine Hogarth. Although the marriage produced ten children, it was never a love-match, and "Kate" never came close to meeting Dickens' ideal of romantic femininity. In Victorian England, divorce was difficult, scandalous, and often socially and financially ruinous.


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