本书是狄更斯最长的作品之一，它以错综复杂的情节揭露英国法律制度和司法机构的黑暗。

这部小说内容讽刺英国古老的“大法官庭”的作风，是司法体制颟顸、邪恶、无能的象征。小说描写了一件争夺遗产的诉讼案，由于司法人员从中营私、徇讦，竟使得案情拖延二十年。在一个偶然机会里，男爵夫人的私生女艾瑟·萨莫森被那一群律师得知，于是追根究柢的律师藉此威胁男爵夫人，甚至整死一名流浪少年，男爵夫人被迫离家出走，死于一场暴风雪。

其中一名律师被他所利用的人杀害。这二十年期间申诉者居住在荒凉山庄，主人约翰·詹狄士成为一对表兄妹的监护人，等待法官做最后的判决，最后整笔遗产正好全数支付有关的法律诉讼费用，跟诉讼案有关的人死的死，发疯的发疯。多数评论家如萧伯纳、切斯特顿、康拉德、崔尔琳等人皆认为这部小说是“创下小说写作高峰”，也是第一本“法律小说”。

This authoritative text of Bleak House is the first to be established by a comparative study of all surviving versions of Dickens's novel, incorporating evidence from the original manuscript and corrected proofs. Study of the genesis of the novel is facilitated by the reproduction of Dickens's working plans and, for the first time, by thousands of meticulous textual notes.

Among the background readings, this Norton Critical Edition offers all of Dickens's correspondence about the novel. Other background materials, from newspapers and magazines as well as from writings by Dickens and Carlyle, document the Victorian controversy over pollution, a central theme of the novel, and offer contemporary attitudes toward the government, the courts, and the police, to enhance the setting of the story. Also featured are several hundred annotations which fully elucidate for today's readers the allusions and topical references in this remarkably allusive Victorian masterpiece. Especially helpful is a clear exposition of the nature of law procedures in the Court of Chancery, which is crucial to an understanding of the central action of the story.

Critical essays reprinted here include interpretations by G. K. Chesterton, J. Hillis Miller, George Ford, A. O. J. Cockshut, W. J. Harvey, H. M. Daleski, and Ian Ousby.

List of Illustrations

Introduction

Introductory Note on Law Courts and Colleges

The Text of Bleak House

 Contents of Bleak House

 Preface

A Note on the Text

 Dickens' Working Plans

 The Running Headlines

 Textual History

Textual Notes

The Genesis and Composition of Bleak House

Chronology

Dickens' Letters on the Composition of Bleak House

A Dictionary of Bleak House Originals: Persons and Places

Backgrounds

 Pollution

Thomas Miller·A London Fog (Illustrated London News, 1849)

Henry Mayhew·Of the Horse-Dung of the Streets of London (1851)

The Spa-Fields Burial Ground (The Times, 1845)

W. H. Wills and George Hogarth·Heathen and Christian Burial (Household Words, 1850)

R. H. Home·[A Visit with the River-God, Father Thames] (Household Words, 1851)

Thomas Carlyle·[Typhus-Fever in Edinburgh] (from Past and Present, 1843)

Hector Gavin - [Sanitation in a London Suburb] (from Sanitary Ramblings, 1848)

[Report ... on Cholera] (Lancet, 1849)

Charles Dickens·[Speech to the Metropolitan Sanitary Association] (1851 )

 Government

Thomas Carlyle·Downing Street (Latter-Day Pamphlets, 1850)

[On the Opening of Parliament] (Illustrated London News, 1852)

[Speech from the Throne] (Annual Register, 1853 )

 Law Courts, Inquests, and Police

Sutton Sharpe·[Testimony... Concerning Chancery] (1840)

A Chancery Bone of Contention (Punch, 1852)

[A Review of Bleak House] (Eclectic Review, 1853)

[Cross-Examination of a Witness] (Examiner, 1850)

Charles Dickens·[A Police-Conducted Tour of a Slum] (Household Words, 1851)

Criticism

 George Brimley·[A Review of Bleak House in the Spectator]

[Anonymous Review of Bleak House in the Examiner]

 G. K. Chesterton·[Characters in Bleak House]

George Ford·[A Note on Bleak House and Kafka]

J. Hillis Miller·[The World of Bleak House]

A. O. J. Cockshut·[Order and Madness in Bleak House]

W. J. Harvey·[The Double Narrative of Bleak House]

H. M. Daleski·[Transformation in a Sick Society]

Ian Ousby·The Broken Glass: Vision and Comprehension in Bleak House

Bibliography