"Jarndyce and Jarndyce has become a joke. That's the only good that ever came of it." As the interminable Jarndyce and Jarndyce case wends its way through the Court of Chancery, it brings together a motley crew of characters: Ada and Richard Clare, whose inheritance is gradually consumed by legal fees; Esther Summerson, a ward of a child whose parentage becomes increasingly mysterious; the menacing barrister Tulkinghorn; the determined detective Inspector Bucket; and even Jo, the destitute little street sweeper. Bleak House is a merciless, yet often comic, indictment of a society rotten to its core. It is one of Dickens's most ambitious novels, with a scope that extends from the salons of the aristocracy to the poorest neighborhoods of London. This edition follows the first book edition format of 1853. Terry Eagleton's preface examines the characterization and considers Bleak House an early work of detective fiction.