BLEAK HOUSE（ISBN=9780553212235）

　　Written in 1852, this grand indictment of Victorian society-- on its surface a mystery story-- deals with the themes of the vagaries of the High Court of Chancery and misplaced children. From the Inside Flap Introduction by Barbara Hardy

　　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. At age eleven, Dickens was taken out of school and sent to work in London backing warehouse, where his job was to paste labels on bottles for six shillings a week. His father John Dickens, was a warmhearted but improvident man. When he was condemned the Marshela Prison for unpaid debts, he unwisely agreed that Charles should stay in lodgings and continue working while the rest of the family joined him in jail. This three-month separation caused Charles much pain; his experiences as a child alone in a huge city–cold, isolated with barely enough to eat–haunted him for the rest of his life.
　　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 (1836-7) he achieved immediate fame; in a few years he was easily the post 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 (1838-9) and The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41) were huge successes. Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-4) was less so, but Dickens followed it with his unforgettable, A Christmas Carol (1843), Bleak House (1852-3), Hard Times (1854) and Little Dorrit (1855-7) reveal his deepening concern for the injustices of British Society. A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860-1) and Our Mutual Friend (1864-5) complete his major works.
　　Dickens’s marriage to Catherine Hoggarth produced ten children but ended in separation in 1858. In that year he began a series of exhausting public readings; his health gradually declined. After putting in a full day’s work at his home at Gads Hill, Kent on June 8, 1870, Dickens suffered a stroke, and he died the following day.

NABOKOV ON BLEAK HOUSE:
Excerpts from Lectures on Literature
by Vladimir Nabokov
Preface to the Charles Dickens Edition
Preface to the First Edition
(Ⅰ)
　1. In Chancery
　2. In Fashion
　3. A Progress
　4. Telescopic Philanthropy
(Ⅱ)
　5. A Morning Adventure
　6. Quite at Home
　7. The Ghost's Walk
(Ⅲ)
　8. Covering a Multitude of Sins
　9. Signs and Tokens
　10. The Law-Writer
(Ⅳ)
　11. Our Dear Brother
　12. On the Watch
　13. Esther's Narrative
(Ⅴ)
　14. Deportment
　15. Bell Yard
　16. Tom-all-Alone's
(Ⅵ)
　17. Esther's Narrative
　18. Lady Dedlock
　19. Moving On
(Ⅶ)
　20. A New Lodger 
　21. The Smallweed Family
　22. Mr. Bucket
(Ⅷ)
　23. Esther's Narrative
　24. An Appeal Case
　25. Mrs. Snagsby Sees It All 
(Ⅸ)
　26. Sharpshooters
　27. More Old Soldiers Than One
　28. The Ironmaster
　29. The Young Man
(Ⅹ)
　30. Esther's Narrative
　31. Nurse and Patient
　32. The Appointed Time
(Ⅹ)
　33. Interlopers
　34. A Turn of the Screw
　35. Esther's Narrative
……
Bibliography