Bleak House (Norton Critical Editions)

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This authoritativetext of Bleak House was the first to be established by a comparative study of all the surviving versions of Dickensx2019; novel, incorporating evidence from the original manuscript and corrected proofs.Study of the genesis of the novel is facilitated by the reproduction of Dickensx2019; working plans and, for the first time, by some thousands of meticulous textual notes. "Backgrounds" offers all of Dickensx2019; 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 todayx2019;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.