Bleak House (Penguin Books)

Part of "Penguin's" beautiful hardback "Clothbound Classics" series, designed żeby the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. 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 żeby legal costs; Esther Summerson, a ward of court, whose parentage is a source of deepening mystery; the menacing lawyer Tulkinghorn; the determined sleuth Inspector Bucket; and, even Jo, the 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' most ambitious novels, with a range that extends from the drawing rooms of the aristocracy to the poorest of London slums.