Bleak House

"Jarndyce and Jarndyce" is an infamous lawsuit that has been in process for generations. Nobody can remember exactly how the case started but many different individuals have found their fortunes caught up in it. Esther Summerson watches as her friends and neighbours are consumed by their hopes and disappointments with the proceedings. But while the intricate puzzles of the lawsuit are being debated by lawyers, other more dramatic mysteries are unfolding that involve heartbreak, lost children, blackmail and murder.

Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved. CHARLES DICKENS was born in a little house in Landport, Portsea, England, on February 7, 1812. The second of eight children, he grew up in a family frequently beset by financial insecurity. When the family fortunes improved, Charles went back to school, after which he became an office boy, a freelance reporter, and finally an author. With Pickwick Papers (1836—37) he achieved immediate fame. In a few years he was easily the most popular and respected writer of his time. It has been estimated that one out of every ten persons in Victorian England was a Dickens reader. Oliver Twist (1837), Nicholas Nickleby (1838—39), and The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41) were huge successes. Martin Chuzzlewit (1843—44) was less so, but Dickens followed it with his unforgettable A Christmas Carol (1843), Bleak House (1852—53), Hard Times (1854), and Little Dorrit (1855—57), which reveal his deepening concern for the injustices of British society. A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860—61), and Our Mutual Friend (1864—65) complete his major works.