Bleak House (Evergreens)

As the interminable case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce grinds its way through the Court of Chancery, it draws together a disparate group of people: Ada and Richard Clare, whose inheritance is gradually being devoured by legal costs; Esther Summerson, a ward of the court, whose parentage is a source of deepening mystery; the menacing lawyer Tulkinghorn; the determined sleuth Inspector Bucket; and even Jo, a destitute little crossing-sweeper. A savage, but often comic indictment of a society that is rotten to the core, Bleak House is one of Dickens's most ambitious novels, with a range that extends form the drawing rooms of the aristocracy to the poorest of London slums.