Book description
'The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself'
'Jarndyce and Jardyce' is an infamous lawsuit that has been in
process for generations. Nobody can remember exactly how the case
started but many different individuals have found their fortunes
caught up in it. Esther Summerson watches as her friends and
neighbours are consumed by their hopes and disappointments with the
proceedings. But while the intricate puzzles of the lawsuit are being
debated by lawyers, other more dramatic mysteries are unfolding that
involve heartbreak, lost children, blackmail and murder.
Charles Dickens was born in Hampshire on February 7, 1812. His father
was a clerk in the navy pay office, who was well paid but often ended up
in financial troubles. When Dickens was twelve years old he was send to
work in a shoe polish factory because his family had be taken to the
debtors' prison. His career as a writer of fiction started in 1833 when
his short stories and essays began to appear in periodicals.
The
Pickwick Papers
, his first commercial success, was published in 1836. In the same year
he married the daughter of his friend George Hogarth, Catherine Hogarth.
The serialisation of
Oliver Twist
began in 1837 while
The Pickwick Papers
was still running. Many other novels followed and
The Old Curiosity Shop
brought Dickens international fame and he became a celebrity America as
well as Britain. He separated from his wife in 1858. Charles Dickens
died on 9 June 1870, leaving his last novel,
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
, unfinished. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.
