Bleak House An Authoritative and Annotated Text, Illustrations, a Note on the Text, Genesis and Composition, Backgrounds, Criticism

From Tatiana M. Holway's Introduction toBleak House "'What do you think ofBleak House?' is a question which everybody has heard propounded within the last few weeks, when this serial was drawing towards its conclusion; and which, when the work was actually closed, formed, for its own season, as regular a portion of miscellaneous chitchat as 'How are you?'" So began a review of Dickens'sninth novel, commenting on the commentaryBleak Housewas generating and attesting, in this way, not just to the popularity of the writer but, even more, to the supra-literary status of his works. "His current story was really a topic of the day," a reviewer later reminisced; "it seemed something almost akin to politics and newsas if it belonged not so much to literature as to events." There was a difference, though: in the serial form in which Dickens's novels were originally published, the topic of the day stretched on for many, many weeks and months, and with most of them being published in nineteen monthly numbers, these works were before the public for over a year and a half. By the time the serialization ofBleak House, in September of 1853, Dickens had been publishing prodigiously for seventeen years, and his continuous, unprecedented popularity was itself a "regular . . . portion" of contemporary criticism. From the day that "'Boz' first carried away the prize of popular applause . . . by the publication of the unrivaledPickwick. . . he has had no equal in the favor of the reading public," another review ofBleak Housebegan. Other Victorian writers could sell more books: G. M. Reynolds, for one, whose career began with a plagiarism ofThe Pickwick Papers, far surpassed Dickens in sales of his sensational series onThe Mysteries of London(18451855). But Dickens sold extraordinarily well: "I believe I have never had so many readers as in this book," he remarked in the preface toBleak House. And these readers were confined to no class. Dickens was a fixture at "every fireside in the kingdom." When it came toBleak House"To 'recommend' it would be superfluous. Who will not read it?" Such a popular novel "is, to a certain extent, independent of criticism," yet another reviewer asserted, effectively throwing up his hands. Nonetheless, critics had to say something, and what they said was quite mixed. There was censure: "Bleak Houseis, even more than any of its predecessors, chargeable not simply with faults, but absolute want of construction." There was praise:Bleak Houseis "the greatest, the least faulty, the most beautiful of all the works which the pen of Dickens has given to the world." Most readers of Dickens had long agreed that "the delineation of character is hisforte," but whether the characters ofBleak Housewere "life-like" or "contrived," "truthful" or "exaggerated" was another matter. So, too, was the plot: in this regard, the novel represented either "an important advance on anything that we recollect in our author's previous works" or, quite simply, a "failure." In short, there may have been a great deal of talk aboutBleak House, but there was little consensus in what critics said aboutBleak House. Such controversy is notable in itself. Although Dickens's reputation among critics had fluctuated somewDickens, Charles is the author of 'Bleak House An Authoritative and Annotated Text, Illustrations, a Note on the Text, Genesis and Composition, Backgrounds, Criticism', published 2005 under ISBN 9781593083113 and ISBN 1593083114.