In 1850 he also helped to establish the Guild of Literature and Art to create an
endowment for struggling artists. Money was raised for the Guild through amateur
theatrical performances that Dickens usually performed in, directed, and
managed. Dickens was a brilliant actor and loved the stage, producing plays
throughout his career as fund raisers for the many charitable concerns he worked
tirelessly to support. His love for the theater culminated in his captivating
public readings from his own novels.
Bleak House , appearing in twenty monthly installments from March, 1852, to
September, 1853, is a scathing indictment of government, law, philanthropy,
religion, and society in nineteenth century England. The organizing principle of
the plot is the hopelessly entangled lawsuit of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, which
destroys the lives of all who become enmeshed in the Court of Chancery through
the suit.
The legal system is exposed as itself a symptom of what is wrong with a society
that is structurally flawed. The mud, ooze, slime, and fog that symbolically
dominate the world of this novel suggest that this society cannot be redeemed
through a simple restructuring.
