Bleak house (Penguin Books)

"Bleak House" is Charles Dickens' masterful assault on the injustices of the British legal system. This "Penguin Classics" edition is edited with an introduction and notes by Nicola Bradbury, as well as a preface by Terry Eagleton.

As the interminable case of 'Jarndyce and Jarndyce' grinds its way through the Court of Chancery, it draws together a disparate group of people: Ada and Richard Clare, whose inheritance is gradually being devoured żeby legal costs; Esther Summerson, a ward of court, whose parentage is a source of deepening mystery; the menacing lawyer Tulkinghorn; the determined sleuth Inspector Bucket; and even Jo, the destitute little crossing-sweeper.

A savage, but often comic, indictment of a society that is rotten to the core, "Bleak House" is one of Dickens's most ambitious novels, with a range that extends from the drawing rooms of the aristocracy to the poorest of London slums.

This edition follows the first book edition of 1853, and includes all the original illustrations aby 'Phiz', as well as appendices on the Chancery and spontaneous combustion.In his preface, Terry Eagleton examines characterisation and considers "Bleak House" as an early work of detective fiction.

Charles Dickens is one of the best-loved novelists in the English language, whose 200th anniversary was celebrated in 2012. His most famous books, including "Oliver Twist", "Great Expectations", "A Tale of Two Cities", "David Copperfield" and "The Pickwick Papers", have been adapted for stage and screen and read aby millions.

If you enjoyed "Bleak House", you might like Dickens' "Our Mutual Friend", also available in "Penguin Classics". "Perhaps his best novel...when he wrote "Bleak House" he had grown up".

(G.K. Chesterton). "One of the finest of all English satires". (Terry Eagleton).