London, Bradbury and Evans, 1853.
8vo of (1) bl.l., 1 frontispiece, xvi pp., 624 pp., (1) bl.l., 38 plates out of pagination; light-brown morocco, ribbed spines decorated with gilt fillets, gilt fillets around the covers, inner border, gilt edges, case. (G. Mercier sr de son père 1929).
218 x 135 mm.
First edition.
A denunciation of the absurdity of the legal system, the novel was a landmark for its modern narrative technique.
Set against the backdrop of an interminable trial involving some 50 characters, Bleak House is dickens’ great legal romance, denouncing an institution gone mad. Told by two different characters, in a very modern style, the story involves a whole network of coincidences, several false leads and many disappointed or betrayed hopes. Bleak House is also a crime novel whose real hero is London, the city whose atmosphere has been poisoned by the Industrial Revolution. In a vein that is at once satirical, dark and constantly funny, Dickens describes a world where nature is gradually corrupted by man, and marks his definitive passage into the total novel.
Bleak House, the first of Dickens’s great panoramic novels, describes England as a bleak house, ravaged by an irresponsible and venal judicial system, epitomized by the Chancellor, engrossed in his “misty” glory of the Court of Chancery. The story describes a disputed succession before the court, the case of “Jarndyce versus Jarndyce”, which affects all the characters in one way or another and involves an obscure will and large sums of money. The author’s attacks on the judicial system are based on Dickens’s experience of it as a clerk. His uncompromising portrayal of the slow, Byzantine nature of the law and the court system reflects the growing exasperation of his time with the system, and the novel has sometimes been seen as preparing the ground for the reforms of the 1870s.
The House of Bitter Wind echoes many of the key events in Dickens’ life, and reflects many of his personal, political and social concerns. It is also a groundbreaking book in terms of its conception, organization and certain aspects of its style. As such, it represents a milestone in the evolution of his work, what the English call a “watershed novel“, often characterized as the first in a series belonging to his later style. What’s more, critics agree, it is one of his most remarkably completed works.
Illustration by “Phiz” comprising a vignette on the title and 39 plates out of pagination, including 6 in black.
Bleak House is one of Dickens’ first books to use chiaroscuro: « These dark etchings were the result of « machine tinting » the steels, which gave an effect quivalent to that of ‘mezzo-tinting ». The steel was first closely ruled with fine lines, and the design was then etched over the ruling. After that, by a further process of « stopping-out » and « burninhing », the effect of light and shadow was heightened » (Hatton & Cleaver).
A perfect copy in decorated morocco by Mercier, of great rarity in such condition.
Erased handwritten ex libris on a preliminary leaf: Yannick Potter 1856.
(Hatton & Cleaver, A bibliography of The Periodical Works of Charles Dickens, pp.274-304).
