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Bleak House is a novel by English author Charles Dickens, first published as a 20-episode serial between 12 March 1852 and 12 September 1853. The novel has many characters and several subplots and is told partly by the novel's heroine, Esther Summerson, and partly by an omniscient narrator. At the centre of Bleak House is a long-running legal case in the Court of Chancery, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, which comes about because a testator has written several conflicting wills. In a preface to the 1853 first edition, Dickens said there were many actual precedents for his fictional case.
Some scholars debate when Bleak House is set. The English legal historian Sir William Holdsworth sets the action in 1827; however, reference to preparation for the building of a railway in Chapter LV suggests the 1830s. A work of Gothic fiction depicting London as a murky city swathed in fog, Bleak House is credited with introducing urban fog to the novel, which would become a frequent characteristic of urban Gothic literature and film. Released in 1901, the Bleak House-inspired The Death of Poor Joe is the earliest filmed adaptation of a Dickens work.
Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school at age 12 to work in a boot-blacking factory when his father, John, was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. After three years, he returned to school before beginning his literary career as a journalist. Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years; wrote 15 novels, five novellas, and hundreds of short stories and nonfiction articles; lectured and performed readings extensively; was a tireless letter writer; and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms.
