BLEAK HOUSE（ISBN=9780679405689）

　　(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) Introduction by Barbara Hardy

　　The death of Pietro di Donato's immigrant father sent Pietro to work at twelve as a bricklayer. His acclaimed, semi-autobiographical bestseller, Christ in Concrete (1939), was a seminal novel that influenced a generation of writers. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

　　An entry in The Whole Story series, this is an annotated edition of the 1873 classic, printed on coated stock and enhanced by both atmospheric new paintings and hundreds of postage-stamp-sized 19th-century photos and prints. The explanatory captions (credited to Jean-Pierre Verdet only on the copyright page) accompanying the latter are largely superfluous, although they do add random snippets of historical background to the journey. It's the views of old ships and trains, of costumed natives, and distant ports of call - from Port Said to San Francisco - that evoke the tale's panorama of the exotic, just as the many lurid Verne trading cards and other spinoffs capture the plot's melodramatic highlights. A good way to put both book and story in context for young armchair travelers. --Kirkus Reviews