Bleak House, “is, among Dickens novels, uniquely original in its alternation of first-person past-tense chapters with a concurrent third-person account in present tense,” writes Benjamin Taylor, author of Proust: The Search. “Braided together and working in concert, these two strands tell the tale of Esther Summerson, Honoria Deadlock, Mr Tulkinghorn, John Jarndyce, Richard Carstone, Ada Clare, Mr Guppy, Mr Krook, Nemo the copyist, Miss Flite, Jo the crossing sweeper, Herbert Skimpole, Mr Woodcourt, Sargent George, Inspector Bucket, Mr Smallweed and dozens of others. Say the names and you are there among them.” Geoffrey O’Brien of the New York Review of Books calls Bleak House “the great book of the city of grime and fog and laws”. Malcolm Jones of The Daily Beast says it is “the only novel that has ever enthralled me so thoroughly that I skipped ahead to find out what happened to a particular character.” “It’s sobering to confront [the interminable lawsuit] Jarndyce and Jarndyce when you’re just launching your own career and thinking hardheadedly about money for the first time,” writes Barbara Hoffert of Library Journal. (Credit: Oxford World Classics)