BLEAK HOUSE《荒凉山庄》（ISBN=9780375760051）

　　Widely regarded as Dickens' s masterpiece, Bleak House centers on the generations-long lawsuit Jarndyce and Jarndyce, through which " whole families have inherited legendary hatreds." Focusing on Esther Summerson, a ward of John Jarndyce, the novel traces Esther' s romantic coming-of-age and, in classic Dickensian style, the gradual revelation of long-buried secrets, all set against the foggy backdrop of the Court of Chancery. Mixing romance, mystery, comedy, and satire, Bleak House limns the suffering caused by the intricate inefficiency of the law. The text of this Modern Library Paperback Classic was set from the first single-volume edition, published by Bradbury and Evans in 1853, and reproduces thirty-nine of H. K. Browne' s original illustrations for the book.

　　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.

BIOGRAPHICAL NoTE
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
INTRODUCTION by Mary GaitsKill
A NOTE ON THE TEXT
PREFACE
BLEAK HOUSE
I\In Chancery
……
LX Prespective
NOTES
READING GROUP GUIDE

　　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