Product Description This authoritative text of Bleak House was the first to be established by a comparative study of all the surviving versions of Dickens’ novel, incorporating evidence from the original manuscript and corrected proofs. Study of the genesis of the novel is facilitated by the reproduction of Dickens’ working plans and, for the first time, by some thousands of meticulous textual notes. ''Backgrounds'' offers all of Dickens’ correspondence about Bleak House as well as contextual materials that document the Victorian controversy over pollution, a theme central to the novel, and present contemporary attitudes toward the government, the courts, and the police, to enhance the setting of the story. Also featured are several hundred annotations which fully elucidate for today’s readers the allusions and topical references in this remarkably allusive Victorian masterpiece. Especially helpful is a clear exposition of the nature of law procedures in the Court of Chancery, which is crucial to an understanding of the central action of the story. ''Critical essays'' reprinted here include interpretations by G. K. Chesterton, J. Hillis Miller, George Ford, A. O. J. Cockshut, W. J. Harvey, H. M. Daleski, and Ian Ousby. About the Author Charles Dickens (1812-1870) is one of the most acclaimed and popular writers of all time. His many works include the classics The Old Curiosity Shop, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, Barnaby Rudge, A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, Bleak House, Hard Times, Our Mutual Friend , The Pickwick Papers and many more. George Ford was Joseph H. Gilmore Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Rochester. He was the author of Keats and the Victorians, Dickens and His Readers, Double Measure: A Study of the Novels and Stories of D. H. Lawrence , and The Making of a Secret Agent . He was a founding editor of The Norton Anthology of English Literature and was editor, with Sylv?re Monod, of the Norton Critical Edition of Hard Times . Professor Ford was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a recipient of the Wilbur Cross Medal from Yale University. He died in 1994. Sylv?re Monod is Emeritus Professor of English at the Sorbonne. He is the author of Dickens the Novelist, Histoire de la lit?rature anglaise de Victoria ? Elizabeth II, Martin Chuzzlewit: A Critical Study , and Madame Homais (a novel). He is editor, with George Ford, of the Norton Critical Edition of Hard Times , and of numerous French editions of works by Charles Dickens, Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling, and the Bront?s. Professor Monod is a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor and a Commander of the British Empire. Charles Dickens's masterful assault on the injustices of the British legal systemAs 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 by 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 by '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.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
In this rich compilation, Emeka Nwosu takes the reader to a journey of the issues that have helped to shape discourses on various aspects of the Nigerian state and society. The articles, originally published in his weekly column in the premier Nigerian daily newspaper, ThisDay, not only show his perspectives on these issues when they were written but also reveal how discussions on some of those issues have evolved over time and how they have mutated today.
Journalists, especially those who maintain regular columns, are often said to write 'history in a hurry'. For experienced writers like the author whose writings are research-based, it does not mean that what they write about is factually wrong but simply that their writings are infused with the passions and emotions that attended those issues as they unfolded.
This collection is therefore not only informed commentaries on some of the issues that have shaped the contour of the Nigerian state and society over the years but a good trip on the passions and emotions that attended those discourses. The articles, 66 of them, are written with remarkable candour and gusto and therefore a delight to read. They form a very important contribution to the corpus of works on Nigerian politics and society.
Bleak House is the ninth novel by Charles Dickens, published in twenty monthly installments between March 1852 and September 1853. It is held to be one of Dickens's finest novels, containing one of the most vast, complex and engaging arrays of minor characters and sub-plots in his entire canon. Dickens tells all of these both through the narrative of the novel's heroine, Esther Summerson, and as an omniscient narrator. Memorable characters include the menacing lawyer Tulkinghorn, the friendly but depressive John Jarndyce and the childish Harold Skimpole .. A enthralling story about the inequalities of the 19th-century English legal system Bleak House is one of Charles Dicken's most multifaceted novels. Bleak House deals with a multiplicity of characters, plots and subplots that all weave in and around the true story of the famous case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, a case of litigation in England's Court of Chancery, which starts as a problem of legacy and wills, but soon raises the question of murder. From London's slums to the Court of Chancery, where the endless case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce devours the future of several generations, the author's canvas of Victorian society vividly conveys an indictment of legal corruption, a riveting tale of detection, and a compelling emotional drama
