Charles Dickens, Bleak House

Grahame Smith (University of Stirling)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.07: English Writing and Culture of the Victorian Period, 1837-1901.
Vol. editors: Gillian Fenwick (University of Toronto), Grace Moore (University of Otago)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1852 - 1853

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

In a recent critical book, Dickens Redressed: The Art of Bleak House and Hard Times, Alexander Welsh refers to Bleak House as being “an impressive work of montage, which ought by now to have earned Dickens the reputation of composing in 1852-53 a distinctly modernist text” (125). This is part of a fairly recent shift in the interpretation of Dickens's work which sees it anticipating the novels of Joyce, Faulkner, Conrad and other major figures in literary modernism. One aspect of this daring originality is the invention by Dickens of what might be called the fictional institution, major examples being Bleak House's Court of Chancery and the Circumlocution Office of Little Dorrit. …

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1996 words

Citation: Smith, Grahame. "Bleak House". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 March 2001 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=6297, accessed 26 November 2024.]

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