Summary: Chapter 1, “In Chancery”
In London, the Lord High Chancellor sits in Lincoln’s
Inn Hall in the High Court of Chancery. It is November and very
foggy. Several counsels and solicitors are looking through the paperwork
of a court case called Jarndyce and Jarndyce, which has gone on
for generations. An old woman who appears to be crazy sits at the
side of the room. She may be a party in the lawsuit. The case is
so old that no one really remembers what it is about anymore, and
it has corrupted countless people. A man named Mr. Tangle knows
more about the case than anyone else. The chancellor determines
to send two young people, a girl and a boy, to live with their uncle.
Summary: Chapter 2, “In Fashion”
The narrator points out the triviality and evil in the
world of fashion, although there are good people in it as well.
Lady Dedlock has come home with her husband, Sir Leicester Dedlock.
He loves Lady Dedlock, but she is cold and distant. The Dedlocks’
lawyer and legal advisor, Mr. Tulkinghorn, visits them and updates
them on the Jarndyce and Jarndyce case. Lady Dedlock asks him who
copied the documents, claiming that she likes the handwriting. Tulkinghorn says
he’ll find out. Lady Dedlock feels ill and retreats to her room.
Summary: Chapter 3, “A Progress”
Esther Summerson takes over as a first-person narrator.
She claims to be unintelligent. She remembers a doll she had when
she was a child that she felt was the only person she could talk
to. Esther’s godmother, Miss Barbary, raised Esther, and Esther
believes that she was fully virtuous but distant and strict. She
says her birthday was always the saddest day of the year. On one
birthday, Esther demanded to know what happened to her mother, and
her godmother revealed that Esther was her mother’s “disgrace” and
that her mother was a disgrace as well. As a result, the distance
between Esther and her godmother grows wider. One day, a stranger
comes to the house and looks Esther over. Then he leaves.
Two years later, when Esther is fourteen, her godmother
dies suddenly. The stranger reappears and introduces himself as
Kenge. He reveals that Esther’s godmother was actually her aunt.
He asks her if she’s ever heard of a lawsuit called Jarndyce and
Jarndyce, which she has not. Kenge says that as part of the lawsuit,
Esther will live with Mr. Jarndyce. She will be educated and comfortable,
but she must not ever leave the grounds without informing Mr. Jarndyce. Esther
says goodbye to the housekeeper, Mrs. Rachael, who shows no emotion.
Esther buries her beloved doll in the garden.
Kenge takes her away in the coach, then drops her off
near Reading. A maid, Miss Donny, leads her to a carriage and they
go to an estate called Greenleaf, as arranged by Esther’s new guardian,
Mr. Jarndyce. Esther spends six years at Greenleaf. One day, she
receives a letter from Kenge, saying she will be placed in a new
home in five days.
Esther leaves Greenleaf sadly but talks herself out of
crying. At Kenge’s office, she meets a young girl named Ada Clare,
and Ada’s cousin, Richard Carstone. All three young people are to
be taken to Bleak House, where Mr. Jarndyce lives. Esther has been
chosen as Ada’s companion. Ada and Richard are somehow related to
the Jarndyce and Jarndyce case, but Esther isn’t.
