BLEAK HOUSE by Charles Dickens (hier online bestellen)
The story:
The case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, in the High Court of Chancery, has been going on for a long time. The
current Jarndyce, John, owner of Bleak House, has little hope of gaining anything from it. On her aunt's death
Esther Summerson is adopted by Jarndyce and becomes companions to his wards, Ada Clare and Richard Carstone.
Carstone has hopes that the chancery case will make his fortune.
As the story unfolds it is revealed that Esther is the illegitimate daughter of Captain Hawdon and Lady Dedlock.
When the Dedlock's lawyer, Tulkinghorn learns of this, and tries to profit by the information, he is murdered
by Lady Dedlock's former maid. Lady Dedlock flees and later dies at the gates of the cemetery where Hawdon
lies buried.
John Jarndyce has fallen in love with Esther and asked her to marry him. She consents out of respect for
Jarndyce but during the engagement she falls in love with Allan Woodcourt. When Jarndyce learns of her
feelings for Allan he releases her from the engagement and she marries Woodcourt. The chancery case comes
to a close with court costs eating up all of the estate. Carstone, who has married Ada, dies in despair.
Extract from book:
Wintry morning, looking with dull eyes and sallow face upon the neighbourhood of Leicester Square, finds its
inhabitants unwilling to get out of bed. Many of them are not early risers at the brightest of times, being
birds of night who roost when the sun is high and are wide awake and keen for prey when the stars shine out.
Behind dingy blind and curtain, in upper story and garret, skulking more or less under false names, false hair,
false titles, false jewellery, and false histories, a colony of brigands lie in their first sleep. Gentlemen of
the green-baize road who could discourse from personal experience of foreign galleys and home treadmills; spies
of strong governments that eternally quake with weakness and miserable fear, broken traitors, cowards, bullies,
gamesters, shufflers, swindlers, and false witnesses; some not unmarked by the branding-iron beneath their dirty
braid; all with more cruelty in them than was in Nero, and more crime than is in Newgate. For howsoever bad the
devil can be in fustian or smock-frock (and he can be very bad in both), he is a more designing, callous,
and intolerable devil when he sticks a pin in his shirt-front, calls himself a gentleman, backs a card or
colour, plays a game or so of billiards, and knows a little about bills and promissory notes than in any
other form he wears. And in such form Mr. Bucket shall find him, when he will, still pervading the tributary
channels of Leicester Square.
But the wintry morning wants him not and wakes him not. It wakes Mr. George of the shooting gallery and his
familiar. They arise, roll up and stow away their mattresses. Mr. George, having shaved himself before a
looking-glass of minute proportions, then marches out, bare-headed and bare-chested, to the pump in the
little yard and anon comes back shining with yellow soap, friction, drifting rain, and exceedingly cold
water. As he rubs himself upon a large jack-towel, blowing like a military sort of diver just come up,
his hair curling tighter and tighter on his sunburnt temples the more he rubs it so that it looks as if
it never could be loosened by any less coercive instrument than an iron rake or a curry-comb--as he rubs,
and puffs, and polishes, and blows, turning his head from side to side the more conveniently to excoriate
his throat, and standing with his body well bent forward to keep the wet from his martial legs, Phil, on his
knees lighting a fire, looks round as if it were enough washing for him to see all that done, and sufficient
renovation for one day to take in the superfluous health his master throws off.
(from chapter 26)
About the author:
Full Name: Charles John Huffam Dickens (early alias: Boz)
Date of Birth: Friday, February 7, 1812
Place of Birth: No. 1 Mile End Terrace, Landport, Portsmouth England
Parents: Father-John Dickens (1785-1851); Mother-Elizabeth Dickens (1789-1863)
Education: Approx. one year at William Giles' school in Chatham, Kent (age 9-11); nearly three years Wellington
House Academy in London (age 13-15); beyond this, largely self-educated.
First Published Story: A Dinner at Poplar Walk published in Monthly Magazine (December 1833)
Marriage: Catherine (Hogarth) Dickens (1815-1879) : married April 2, 1836 in St. Luke's Church, Chelsea :
Separated 1858
Date of Death: Thursday, June 9, 1870 (stroke)
Place of Burial: Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey, London
Buchdaten:
BLEAK HOUSE by Charles Dickens
Sprache: Englisch
Taschenbuch - 848 Seiten - Bantam Classics
Erscheinungsdatum: 1. Juni 1995
Auflage: Reissue
ISBN: 0553212230
Preis: € 6,49
More works from the same author:
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