Money turns peoples lives around. And the jarndyce family knows this very well. Meet the inhabitants of the bleak house. Mr. John jarndyce is the kind and generous owner of the house, who is the legal guardian of Esther summer son, a woman with a mysterious parentage, of the young and beautiful Ada Clare, and of the restless and irresponsible Richard carstone. Hovering over them all is a family curse—a never-ending Court case about the family long-disputed inheritance that has been going on for decades. The case has become ‘so complicated that no man alive knows what it means’, and threatens to ruin the lives and happiness of the jarndyce family. Richard, despite John’s warning, becomes obsessed with the case and holds out hope of winning it. Will his efforts bear fruit and finally end the family curse? Or will he become another unfortunate victim? Considered to be Charles Dickens’ best work, bleak house addresses the corrupt system of law and litigiousness, and provoked intense responses through its satire on the society of nineteenth-century England. It remains a wonderful piece of writing that continues to enthral readers even today, two centuries after its publication.
