[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-seo-143254-105":3,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":81,"doc-detail-143254-en":131},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"ok",{"site_id":7,"language":8,"slug":9,"title":10,"keywords":11,"description":12,"schema_data":13,"social_meta":74,"head_meta":76,"extra_data":78,"updated_unix":80},105,"en","bleak-house-preface-chapter-i-in-chancery","Bleak House - Preface - Chapter I In Chancery","","Bleak House, by Charles Dickens, presents a satirical yet investigative view of the Court of Chancery through the narrator’s preface and the opening of Chapter I. The preface emphasizes how legal delays, escalating costs, and entrenched procedures distort justice, using contemporary examples and specific references. Chapter I begins in London with grim, vivid weather and immediate courtroom context, setting a tone where familiar life and institutional absurdity intertwine, foreshadowing broader themes of neglect and moral consequence.",{"@graph":14,"@context":73},[15,34,56],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/story-novel/","Story & Novel",3,{"item":32,"name":10,"@type":21,"position":33},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/bleak-house-preface-chapter-i-in-chancery/143254/",4,{"url":32,"name":10,"@type":35,"image":36,"author":41,"headline":10,"publisher":44,"fileFormat":47,"inLanguage":8,"description":12,"dateModified":48,"datePublished":49,"encodingFormat":47,"isAccessibleForFree":50,"interactionStatistic":51},"DigitalDocument",{"url":37,"@type":38,"width":39,"height":40},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/bleak-house-preface-chapter-i-in-chancery/143254.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":42,"@type":43},"Ava Thompson","Person",{"url":19,"name":45,"@type":46},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-11-04","2026-08-25",true,{"@type":52,"interactionType":53,"userInteractionCount":55},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":54},"ViewAction",18,{"@type":57,"mainEntity":58},"FAQPage",[59,65,69],{"name":60,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":62},"What is the main focus of the preface in Bleak House?","Question",{"text":63,"@type":64},"The preface focuses on the Court of Chancery and argues that its processes are substantially true in their portrayal, highlighting delays, costs, and entrenched wrongs.","Answer",{"name":66,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":67},"How does the preface use examples to support its claims?",{"text":68,"@type":64},"It cites specific historical and contemporary Chancery suits, including cases where immense sums and long durations show the court’s lack of timely resolution.",{"name":70,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":71},"What begins in Chapter I, and where does it take place?",{"text":72,"@type":64},"Chapter I opens with “In Chancery,” set in London, with the Lord Chancellor’s session described alongside the grim seasonal atmosphere of Michaelmas term.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":32,"og:type":75,"og:title":10,"og:site_name":45,"og:description":12},"article",{"robots":77,"canonical":32},"index,follow",{"doc_id":79,"site_id":7},143254,1787693930,{"code":4,"msg":82,"data":83},"success",[84,87,91,95,100,105,110,115,120,123,127],{"id":22,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":29,"show_sort_weight":85,"slug":86},90,"story-novel",{"id":26,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":88,"show_sort_weight":89,"slug":90},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":33,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":92,"show_sort_weight":93,"slug":94},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":96,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":97,"show_sort_weight":98,"slug":99},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":101,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":102,"show_sort_weight":103,"slug":104},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":106,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":107,"show_sort_weight":108,"slug":109},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":111,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":112,"show_sort_weight":113,"slug":114},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":116,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":117,"show_sort_weight":118,"slug":119},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":118,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":121,"show_sort_weight":118,"slug":122},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":124,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":125,"show_sort_weight":124,"slug":126},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":128,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":129,"show_sort_weight":96,"slug":130},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":82,"data":132},{"doc_id":79,"user_id":133,"nickname":42,"user_avatar":134,"doc_module":4,"category_id":22,"category_name":29,"doc_title":10,"doc_description":12,"doc_content":135,"file_id":136,"file_url":137,"file_type":138,"file_size":139,"view_count":55,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":22,"is_downloadable":22,"audit_status":22,"page_count":140,"language":141,"language_code":8,"site_id":7,"html_lang":8,"table_of_contents":142,"faqs":143,"seo_title":144,"seo_description":12,"update_tm":80,"read_time":145},1649267921044,"https://us-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/1800007509477c92dfb?_k=1786009248482753345","Bleak House  \nBy Charles Dickens  \nPublished by Planet eBook. Visit the site to download free eBooks of classic literature, books and novels.  \nThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons AttributionNoncommercial 3.0 United States License.   \nPREFACE  \nA Chancery judge once had the kindness to inform me, as one of a company of some hundred and fifty men and women not labouring under any suspicions of lunacy, that the Court of Chancery, though the shining subject of much popular prejudice (at which point I thought the judge’s eye had a cast in my direction), was almost immaculate. There had been, he admitted, a trivial blemish or so in its rate of progress, but this was exaggerated and had been entirely owing to the ‘parsimony of the public,’ which guilty public, it appeared, had been until lately bent in the most determined manner on by no means enlarging the number of Chancery judges appointed—I believe by Richard the Second, but any other king will do as well.  \nThis seemed to me too profound a joke to be inserted in the body of this book or I should have restored it to Conversation Kenge or to Mr. Vholes, with one or other of whom I think it must have originated. In such mouths I might have coupled it with an apt quotation from one of Shakespeare’s sonnets:  \n“My nature is subdued  \nTo what it works in, like the dyer’s hand: Pity me, then, and wish I were renewed!’  \n[Free eBooks at](Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com)[ Planet eBook.com](Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com) 3  \nBut as it is wholesome that the parsimonious public should know what has been doing, and still is doing, in this connexion, I mention here that everything set forth in these pages concerning the Court of Chancery is substantially true, and within the truth. The case of Gridley is in no essential altered from one of actual occurrence, made public by a disinterested person who was professionally acquainted with the whole of the monstrous wrong from beginning to end. At the present moment (August, 1853) there is a suit before the court which was commenced nearly twenty years ago, in which from thirty to forty counsel have been known to appear at one time, in which costs have been incurred to the amount of seventy thousand pounds, which is A FRIENDLY SUIT, and which is (I am assured) no nearer to its termination now than when it was begun. There is another well-known suit in Chancery, not yet decided, which was commenced before the close of the last century and in which more than double the amount of seventy thousand pounds has been swallowed up in costs. If I wanted other authorities for Jarndyce and Jarndyce, I could rain them on these pages, to the shame of—a parsimonious public.  \nThere is only one other point on which I offer a word of remark. The possibility of what is called spontaneous combustion has been denied since the death of Mr. Krook; and my good friend Mr. Lewes (quite mistaken, ashe soon found, in supposing the thing to have been abandoned by all authorities) published some ingenious letters to me at the time when that event was chronicled, arguing that spontaneous combustion could not possibly be. I have no need to observe  \n4 Bleak House  \nthat I do not wilfully or negligently mislead my readers and that before I wrote that description I took pains to investigate the subject. There are about thirty cases on record, of which the most famous, that of the Countess Cornelia de Baudi Cesenate, was minutely investigated and described by Giuseppe Bianchini, a prebendary of Verona, otherwise distinguished in letters, who published an account of it at Verona in 1731, which he afterwards republished at Rome. The appearances, beyond all rational doubt, observed in that case are the appearances observed in Mr. Krook’s case. The next most famous instance happened at Rheims six years earlier, and the historian in that case is Le Cat, one of the most renowned surgeons produced by France. The subject was a woman, whose husband was ignorantly convicted of ","cbCaij1sO9CiaVfM","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaij1sO9CiaVfM","pdf",6023516,1307,"English","# Preface\n## Court of Chancery and legal delays\n## Spontaneous combustion discussion\n# Chapter I\n## In Chancery\n## London setting and atmosphere","[{\"question\":\"What is the main focus of the preface in Bleak House?\",\"answer\":\"The preface focuses on the Court of Chancery and argues that its processes are substantially true in their portrayal, highlighting delays, costs, and entrenched wrongs.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the preface use examples to support its claims?\",\"answer\":\"It cites specific historical and contemporary Chancery suits, including cases where immense sums and long durations show the court’s lack of timely resolution.\"},{\"question\":\"What begins in Chapter I, and where does it take place?\",\"answer\":\"Chapter I opens with “In Chancery,” set in London, with the Lord Chancellor’s session described alongside the grim seasonal atmosphere of Michaelmas term.\"}]","Bleak House - Preface - Chapter I In Chancery | PDF",2013]