What we’re about
Remember all those great books that were forced down our throats in High School? Do you remember them with fond memories? No, of course not. We were all too young with other priorities to fully appreciate them. This is a book group that aims to remedy that by revisiting all the great classics. Books like The Great Gatsby, Moby Dick, Crime and Punishment, Wuthering Heights, and many many more. This is not high school, there will be no tests or forced questions, just book lovers and casual discussion. -Brad (group founder)
Upcoming events (1)
See all- Bleak House by Charles DickensLink visible for attendees
Bleak House is a novel by English author Charles Dickens, first published as a 20-episode serial between 12 March 1852 and 12 September 1853. The novel has many characters and several subplots, and is told partly by the novel's heroine, Esther Summerson, and partly by an omniscient narrator. At the centre of Bleak House is a long-running legal case in the Court of Chancery, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, which comes about because a testator has written several conflicting wills. In a preface to the 1853 first edition, Dickens said there were many actual precedents for his fictional case.[1] One such was probably Thellusson v Woodford, in which a will read in 1797[2] was contested and not determined until 1859. Though many in the legal profession criticised Dickens's satire as exaggerated, Bleak House helped support a judicial reform movement that culminated in the enactment of legal reform in the 1870s.[3]
Some scholars debate when Bleak House is set. The English legal historian Sir William Holdsworth sets the action in 1827;[4] however, reference to preparation for the building of a railway in Chapter LV suggests the 1830s.Given that it's nearly 900 pages long, we've decided to divide the book into two: Chapter 1 through 31 for January; then Chapter 32 through end for February. The book is available for free via Project Gutenberg, here: Bleak House by Charles Dickens with multiple audio books and analyses on YouTube as well.
