The novel begins as a series of episodes, pictures of morals, psychological sketches that almost do not add up to the plot. Only at the end of the novel does it become clear how many details are important for the plot and how different characters are related to each other (for example,
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Smallweed turns out to be Crook's brother-in-law
Only in the last two hundred pages does the plot become exciting and makes you feverishly turn the pages in the hope that
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that Lady Dedlock will be able to catch up and tell her that her husband loves her and is waiting for her
There are also moves that deceive the reader’s expectations -
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the will was found only after the money disappeared.
The novel's satire is aimed at the confusing system of English legal proceedings and the false charity of people who solve their psychological problems in this way. Mrs. Jellyby spends all her time and energy on charity and does not care at all about her family, and her charity does not really benefit the poor. However, Mrs. Jellyby is still a good option, I read about charities who beat children so that they don’t get in the way. I wonder how Dickens himself felt about the idea of women parliamentarians? In this matter I cannot help but sympathize with Mrs. Jellyby.
Esther is an abandoned child, and like many abandoned children, she touchingly loves her distant mother. Unlike many abandoned children, she is not embittered towards the whole world, but, on the contrary, touchingly tries to earn the love of those around her. What low self-esteem she has. How touchingly grateful she is for any kind word. As grateful as she is for the innkeeper's care, it does not occur to her that her companion could simply pay the innkeeper generously for her care.
Godmother Esther is a monster. How can you tell a child: “It would have been better if you had never been born”?!
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How can you voluntarily ruin your life and take revenge on a child for it?!
I'm glad Esther
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She didn’t marry Jarndyce after all; given their relationship, there would have been a lot of... incestuous things in such a marriage.
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If Lady Dedlock had confessed everything to her fiancé right away, many years ago, he might have abandoned her right away, or perhaps forgiven her, but she would not have had to live in eternal fear, she would not have had to run away from home in winter. .
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who does not know whether to reveal their secrets to loved ones.
Here is a trial that drags on for decades, serves to enrich dozens of lawyers and ends only when
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when the money that was the subject of the litigation was completely spent on legal costs.
P.S. Historians of science take note: the first page mentions megalosaurs, which were then a scientific sensation.
A girl named Esther Summerston has to grow up without parents; she is raised only by her godmother, Miss Barbery, a very cold and stern lady. To all questions about her mother, this woman answers Esther only that her birth was a real shame for everyone and the girl should forever forget about the one who brought her into the world.
At the age of 14, Esther also loses her godmother; immediately after the burial of Miss Barbery, a certain Mr. Kenge appears and invites the young girl to go to an educational institution, where she will not lack anything and will be properly prepared to become a real lady in the future. Esther willingly agrees to go to the boarding school, where she meets a truly kind and warm-hearted teacher and friendly friends. In this institution, a growing girl spends six unclouded years; subsequently, she often remembers this period of her life with warmth.
Upon completion of her education, Mr. John Jarndyce, whom Esther considers her guardian, arranges for the girl to be a companion to his relative Ada Claire. She has to go to the Jarndyce estate, known as Bleak House, and her companion on this journey is a handsome young man, Richard Carston, who is related to her future employer.
Bleak House has a gloomy and sad history, but in recent years, Esther’s guardian has managed to give it a more modern and decent look, and the girl willingly begins to manage the house, the guardian wholeheartedly approves of her diligence and agility. Soon she gets used to life on the estate and meets many neighbors, including a noble family named Dedlock.
At the same time, young William Guppy, who recently began working in the law office of Mr. Kenge, who had previously taken part in Esther’s fate, meets this girl on the estate and is immediately captivated by the attractive and at the same time very modest Miss Summerston. Having visited the Dedlocks a little later on business for his company, Guppy notices that the arrogant aristocrat Lady Dedlock reminds him of someone.
Arriving at Bleak House, William confesses his feelings to Esther, but the girl flatly refuses to even listen to the young man. Then Guppy hints to her that she is similar in appearance to Milady Dedlock, and promises to definitely find out the whole truth regarding this similarity.
The investigation of Esther's admirer leads to the discovery of letters from a certain man who died in the most wretched room and was buried in a common grave intended for the poorest and most destitute people. After reading the letters, William understands that the late Captain Howden had a past love affair with Lady Dedlock, which resulted in the birth of a girl.
Guppy tries to talk about his discoveries with Esther's mother, but the aristocrat acts extremely coldly and demonstrates that she does not understand what this man is talking about. But after William leaves her, Lady Dedlock admits to herself that her daughter did not actually die immediately after birth; the woman is no longer able to contain the emotions that gripped her.
The daughter of a deceased judge appears in Bleak House for some time. Esther takes care of the orphaned girl, looks after her when the child falls ill with smallpox, as a result of which she also becomes a victim of this serious illness. All the inhabitants of the estate try to prevent the girl from seeing her face, which is very spoiled by smallpox, and Lady Dedlock secretly meets with Esther and tells her that she is her own mother. When Captain Howden left her in his youth, the woman was led to believe that her child was stillborn. But in reality, the girl ended up being raised by her older sister. The wife of an aristocrat begs her daughter not to tell anyone the truth in order to maintain her usual lifestyle and high position in society.
Young doctor Allen Woodcourt, who comes from a poor family, falls in love with Esther; it was very difficult for his mother to give him a medical education. This man is very attractive to the girl, but in the English capital he has no opportunity to earn a decent living, and Dr. Woodcourt, at the first opportunity, goes to China as a ship's doctor.
Richard Carston starts working at a law firm, but things aren't going well for him. Having invested all his savings in the investigation of an old case related to the Jarndyce family, he loses not only his funds, but also his health. Carston enters into a secret marriage with his cousin Ada and almost immediately passes away before seeing their child.
Meanwhile, a certain cunning and clever lawyer Tulkinghorn, a greedy and unprincipled man, begins to suspect Lady Dedlock of keeping unseemly secrets and begins his own investigation. He steals letters from the late Captain Howden from William Guppy, from which everything becomes clear to him. Having told the whole story in the presence of the owners of the house, although it was supposedly about a completely different woman, the lawyer seeks a meeting with Milady alone. The lawyer, pursuing his own interests, persuades Lady Dedlock to continue to hide the truth for the sake of her husband’s peace of mind, although the lady is already ready to leave and leave the world forever.
Lawyer Tulkinghorn changes his intentions; he threatens Lady Dedlock to tell her husband about everything very soon. The next morning, the man's corpse is discovered, and Milady becomes the prime suspect. But in the end, the evidence points to a maid of French origin who served in the house, and the girl ends up under arrest.
Lady Dedlock's husband, Sir Leicester, who is unable to bear the shame that has befallen his family, is crushed by a severe blow. His wife runs away from home, the police are trying to find the woman along with Esther and the doctor Woodcourt, who returned from the expedition. It is Dr. Allen who finds the already deceased Lady Dedlock near the cemetery.
Esther painfully experiences the death of her newly acquired mother, but then the girl gradually comes to her senses. Mr. Jarndyce, having learned about the mutual love between Woodcourt and his ward, decides to act nobly and give way to the doctor. He also sets up a small estate for the future newlyweds in the county of Yorkshire, where Allen will treat the poor. The widowed Ada then settles on the same estate with her little son, to whom she gives the name Richard in honor of her late father. Sir John takes custody of Ada and her son; they move to Bleak House with him, but often visit the Woodcourt family. Mr. Jarndyce will forever remain the closest friend of Dr. Allen and his wife Esther.
Esther Summerston spent her childhood in Windsor, in the house of her godmother, Miss Barbery. The girl feels lonely and often says, turning to her best friend, the rosy-cheeked doll: “You know very well, doll, that I’m a fool, so be kind, don’t be angry with me.” Esther strives to find out the secret of her origin and begs her godmother to tell her at least something about her mother. One day Miss Barbery cannot stand it and sternly says: “Your mother has covered herself with shame, and you have brought shame upon her. Forget about her...” One day, returning from school, Esther finds an important, unfamiliar gentleman in the house. Having looked at the girl, he says something like “Ah!”, then “Yes!” and leaves...
Esther is fourteen years old when her godmother suddenly dies. What could be worse than being orphaned twice! After the funeral, the same gentleman named Kenge appears and, on behalf of a certain Mr. Jarndyce, aware of the sad situation of the young lady, offers to place her in a first-class educational institution, where she will not need anything and will prepare for “fulfilling her duty in the public field.” The girl gratefully accepts the offer and a week later, abundantly supplied with everything she needs, she leaves for the city of Reading, to Miss Donnie’s boarding house. There are only twelve girls studying there, and the future teacher Esther, with her kind character and desire to help, wins their affection and love. This is how the six happiest years of her life pass.
After completing her studies, John Jarndyce (guardian, as Esther calls him) assigns the girl as a companion to his cousin Ada Clare. Together with Ada's young relative, Mr. Richard Carston, they travel to the guardian's estate known as Bleak House. The house once belonged to Mr. Jarndyce's great-uncle, the unfortunate Sir Tom, and was called "The Spires." Perhaps the most famous case of the so-called Chancery Court, “Jarndyce v. Jarndyce,” was associated with this house. The Court of Chancery was created during the era of Richard II, who reigned from 1377–1399, to control the Court of Common Law and correct its errors. But the British hopes for the emergence of a “Court of Justice” were not destined to come true: red tape and abuses by officials led to processes lasting for decades, plaintiffs, witnesses, and lawyers dying, thousands of papers accumulating, and no end to the litigation in sight. Such was the dispute over the Jarndyce inheritance - a long-term trial, during which the owner of the Bleak House, mired in court cases, forgets about everything, and his home deteriorates under the influence of wind and rain. “It seemed as if the house had taken a bullet in the forehead, just like its desperate owner.” Now, thanks to the efforts of John Jarndyce, the house looks transformed, and with the advent of young people it comes to life even more. The smart and sensible Esther is given the keys to the rooms and storage rooms. She copes excellently with difficult household chores - it’s not for nothing that Sir John affectionately calls her Bustle! Life in the house flows smoothly, visits alternate with trips to London theaters and shops, receiving guests gives way to long walks...
Their neighbors turn out to be Sir Lester Dedlock and his wife, a good two decades younger than him. As experts joke, my lady has “the impeccable appearance of the most well-groomed mare in the entire stable.” The secular chronicle notes her every step, every event in her life. Sir Leicester is not so popular, but does not suffer from this, for he is proud of his aristocratic family and cares only about the purity of his honest name. Neighbors sometimes meet in church, on walks, and Esther for a long time cannot forget the emotional excitement that gripped her at the first sight of Lady Dedlock.
The young employee of Kendge's office, William Guppy, experiences a similar excitement: when he sees Esther, Ada and Richard in London on the way to Sir John's estate, he falls in love with the pretty, gentle Esther at first sight. While in those parts on company business, Guppy visits the Dedlock estate and, amazed, stops at one of the family portraits. The face of Lady Dedlock, seen for the first time, seems strangely familiar to the clerk. Soon Guppy arrives at Bleak House and confesses his love to Esther, but receives a decisive rebuff. Then he hints at the amazing similarity between Hester and my lady. “Give me your hand,” William persuades the girl, “and I can’t think of anything to protect your interests and make you happy!” I can’t find out anything about you!” He kept his word. Letters from an unknown gentleman who died from an excessive dose of opium in a dirty, squalid closet and was buried in a common grave in a cemetery for the poor fall into his hands. From these letters, Guppy learns about the connection between Captain Hawdon (that was the name of this gentleman) and Lady Dedlock, about the birth of their daughter. William immediately shares his discovery with Lady Dedlock, causing her extreme embarrassment. But, without giving in to panic, she aristocratically coldly rejects the clerk’s arguments and only after he leaves exclaims: “Oh, my child, my daughter! That means she didn’t die in the first hours of her life!”
Esther becomes seriously ill with smallpox. This happened after the orphaned daughter of a court official, Charlie, appears on their estate, who becomes both a grateful pupil and a devoted maid for Esther. Esther nurses a sick girl and becomes infected herself. Household members hide mirrors for a long time so as not to upset Troublemaker with the sight of her dull face. Lady Dedlock, waiting for Esther to recover, secretly meets with her in the park and admits that she is her unhappy mother. In those early days, when Captain Hawdon abandoned her, she - so she was led to believe - gave birth to a stillborn child. Could she have imagined that the girl would come to life in the arms of her older sister and would be raised in complete secrecy from her mother... Lady Dedlock sincerely repents and begs for forgiveness, but most of all - for silence, in order to preserve the usual life of a rich and noble person and peace spouse. Esther, shocked by the discovery, agrees to any conditions.
No one has any idea what happened - not only Sir John, burdened with worries, but also the young doctor Allen Woodcourt, who is in love with Esther. Smart and reserved, he makes a favorable impression on the girl. He lost his father early, and his mother invested all her meager funds in his education. But, not having enough connections and money in London, Allen cannot earn it by treating the poor. It is not surprising that at the first opportunity, Dr. Woodcourt agrees to the position of ship’s doctor and goes to India and China for a long time. Before leaving, he visits Bleak House and excitedly says goodbye to its inhabitants.
Richard is also trying to change his life: he chooses the legal field. Having started working in Kenge's office, he, to Guppy's displeasure, boasts that he figured out the Jarndyce case. Despite Esther's advice not to enter into a tedious litigation with the Court of Chancery, Richard files an appeal in the hope of winning an inheritance from Sir John for himself and his cousin Ada, to whom he is engaged. He “gambles everything he can scrape together,” spends his beloved’s small savings on duties and taxes, but legal red tape is robbing him of his health. Having secretly married Ada, Richard falls ill and dies in the arms of his young wife, never seeing his unborn son.
And clouds are gathering around Lady Dedlock. A few careless words lead lawyer Tulkinghorn, a regular at their house, to the trail of her secret. This respectable gentleman, whose services are generously paid in high society, masterfully masters the art of living and makes it his duty to do without any convictions. Tulkinghorn suspects that Lady Dedlock, disguised as a French maid, visited the house and grave of her lover, Captain Hawdon. He steals letters from Guppy - this is how he learns the details of the love story. In the presence of the Dedlocks and their guests, Tulkinghorn tells this story, which supposedly happened to some unknown person. Milady understands that the time has come to find out what he is trying to achieve. In response to her words that she wants to disappear from her home forever, the lawyer convinces her to continue to keep the secret for the sake of the peace of mind of Sir Leicester, who “even the fall of the moon from the sky would not be as stunned” as the revelation of his wife.
Esther decides to reveal her secret to her guardian. He greets her confused story with such understanding and tenderness that the girl is filled with “fiery gratitude” and a desire to work hard and selflessly. It is not difficult to guess that when Sir John makes her an offer to become the real mistress of Bleak House, Esther agrees.
A terrible event distracts her from the pleasant upcoming chores and pulls her out of Bleak House for a long time. It so happened that Tulkinghorn broke the agreement with Lady Dedlock and threatened to soon reveal the shameful truth to Sir Leicester. After a difficult conversation with Milady, the lawyer goes home, and the next morning he is found dead. Suspicion falls on Lady Dedlock. Police Inspector Bucket conducts an investigation and informs Sir Leicester of the results: all the evidence collected points against the French maid. She's under arrest.
Sir Leicester cannot bear the thought that his wife has been “thrown down from the heights that she adorned,” and he himself falls, struck down by the blow. Milady, feeling hunted, runs away from home without taking any jewelry or money. She left a farewell letter saying that she was innocent and wanted to disappear. Inspector Bucket sets out to find this troubled soul and turns to Esther for help. They travel a long way in the footsteps of Lady Dedlock. The paralyzed husband, disregarding the threat to the honor of the family, forgives the fugitive and eagerly awaits her return. Dr. Allen Woodcourt, who recently returned from China, joins the search. During the separation, he fell in love with Esther even more, but alas... At the grate of the memorial cemetery for the poor, he discovers the lifeless body of her mother.
Esther experiences what happened for a long time, painfully, but gradually life takes its toll. Her guardian, having learned of Allen's deep feelings, nobly makes way for him. Bleak House is empty: John Jarndyce, who is also the guardian, has taken care of arranging for Esther and Allen an equally glorious smaller estate in Yorkshire, where Allen gets a position as a doctor for the poor. He also called this estate “Bleak House”. There was also a place in it for Ada and her son, named Richard after his father. With the first available money, they build a room for the guardian (“the grumbling room”) and invite him to stay. Sir John becomes a loving guardian to now Ada and her little Richard. They return to the “elder” Bleak House, and often come to stay with the Woodcourts: for Esther and her husband, Sir John has always remained the best friend. Thus seven happy years pass, and the words of the wise guardian come true: “Both houses are dear to you, but the elder Bleak House claims primacy.”
Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812 in Landport, a suburb of Portsmouth (Southern England). His father, an official of the naval commissary, soon after the boy's birth was transferred to Chatham Docks, and from there to London.
Little Dickens early became acquainted with the works of Shakespeare, Defoe, Fielding, Smollett, and Goldsmith. These books captured Charles's imagination and sank into his soul forever. The greatest English realists of the past prepared him to perceive what reality revealed to him.
Dickens's family, which had modest means, experienced increasing need. The writer's father became mired in debt and soon found himself in the Marshalsea debtor's prison. Having no money for an apartment, Charles’s mother settled with his sister Fanny in prison, where the prisoner’s family was usually allowed to stay, and the boy was sent to a blacking factory. Dickens, who was then only eleven years old, began to earn his own bread.
Never in his life, even in its most cloudless periods, could Dickens remember without a shudder the blacking factory, the humiliation, the hunger, the loneliness of the days spent here. For a pitiful wage, which was barely enough for a lunch of bread and cheese, the little worker, along with other children, had to spend long hours in a damp and gloomy basement, from the windows of which only the gray waters of the Thames could be seen. In this factory, the walls of which were eaten away by worms, and huge rats ran along the stairs, the future great writer of England worked from early morning until dusk.
On Sundays, the boy went to the Marshalsea, where he stayed with his family until the evening. Soon he moved there, renting a room in one of the prison buildings. During the time spent in the Marshalsea, this prison for the poor and bankrupt, Dickens became intimately familiar with the life and morals of its inhabitants. Everything he saw here came to life over time on the pages of his novel Little Dorrit.
The London of dispossessed workers, outcasts, beggars and vagabonds was the school of life that Dickens went through. He forever remembered the haggard faces of people on the streets of the city, pale, thin children, women exhausted from work. The writer experienced firsthand how bad it is for a poor man in winter in torn clothes and thin shoes, and what thoughts flash through his head when, on the way home, he stops in front of brightly lit shop windows and at the entrances of fashionable restaurants. He knew that from the fashionable quarters where the London aristocracy comfortably settled down, it was just a stone's throw away from the dirty and dark alleys where the poor lived. The life of Dickens's contemporary England revealed itself to him in all its ugliness, and the creative memory of the future realist preserved such images that over time excited the whole country.
The happy changes that occurred in the life of the Dickenses made it possible for Charles to resume his interrupted studies. The writer's father unexpectedly received a small inheritance, paid off his debts and got out of prison with his family. Dickens entered the so-called Washington House Commercial Academy on Hamsteadrod.
A passionate thirst for knowledge lived in the heart of the young man, and thanks to this he was able to overcome the unfavorable conditions of the then English school. He studied with enthusiasm, although the “academy” was not interested in the individual inclinations of children and forced them to learn books by heart. Mentors and their wards mutually hated each other, and discipline was maintained only through corporal punishment. Dickens's experiences at school were later reflected in his novels The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby and David Copperfield.
However, Dickens did not have to stay long at the Commercial Academy. His father insisted that he leave school and become a clerk in one of the City offices. A new and hitherto little known world of small employees, entrepreneurs, sales agents and officials opened up before the young man. Dickens's always characteristic attentive attitude to a person, to every detail of his life and character, helped the writer here, among the dusty office books, to find a lot of things that were worth remembering and that he should later tell people about.
Dickens spent his free time in the library of the British Museum. He decided to become a journalist and eagerly took up shorthand. Soon, young Dickens actually got a job as a reporter in one of the small London newspapers. He quickly gained fame among journalists and was invited as a reporter to the World Parliament and then to the Morning Chronicle.
However, the work of a reporter soon ceased to satisfy Dickens. He was attracted to creativity; he began to write stories, small humorous sketches, essays, the best of which he published in 1833 under the pseudonym Bosa. In 1835, two series of his essays were published as a separate publication.
Already in the “Essays of Bose” it is not difficult to discern the handwriting of the great English realist. The plots of Bose's stories are simple; The reader is captivated by the truthfulness of stories about poor clerks, small businessmen trying to get out into the world, old maids dreaming of getting married, street comedians and tramps. Already in this work of the writer his worldview was clearly revealed. Sympathy for man, pity for the poor and disadvantaged, which never left Dickens, constitute the main intonation of his first book; in “Sketches of Boz” an individual Dickensian style was outlined, in them one can see the variety of his stylistic techniques. Humorous scenes and stories about funny and absurd eccentrics are interspersed with sad stories about the fate of the English poor. Later, on the pages of Dickens's best novels, we meet characters who are directly related to the characters in "Sketches of Boz."
“Sketches of Boz” was a success, but it was his novel “The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club,” the first issues of which appeared in 1837, that brought Dickens real fame.
“The Pickwick Papers” were commissioned from the writer as a series of essays accompanying the drawings of the then fashionable cartoonist D. Seymour. However, already in the first chapters of the book, the writer relegated the artist to the background. Dickens's brilliant text became the basis of the book, the drawings of Seymour, and who later replaced him Fiz (Brown) - nothing more than illustrations for him.
The author's good-natured humor and infectious laughter captivated readers, and they laughed merrily with him at the amusing adventures of the Pickwickians, at the caricature of English elections, at the machinations of lawyers and the claims of secular gentlemen. It seems that everything that happens is unfolding in the atmosphere of the patriarchal and cozy Dingley Dell, and bourgeois self-interest and hypocrisy are embodied only by the scammers Jingle and Job Trotter, who inevitably suffer defeat. The whole book breathes with the optimism of the young Dickens. True, at times the dark shadows of people offended by life flicker on the pages of the novel, but they quickly disappear, leaving the reader in the company of gentle eccentrics.
Dickens's second novel was Oliver Twist (1838). The conversation here was no longer about the adventures of cheerful travelers, but about “workhouses”, a kind of correctional institutions for the poor, about charitable institutions, the members of which think most of all about how to punish the poor for poverty, about shelters where orphans starving, about dens of thieves. And this book contains pages worthy of the pen of a great humorist. But in general, the carefree intonations of “The Pickwick Club” are forever a thing of the past. Dickens would never again write a cheerful novel. "Oliver Twist" opens a new stage in the writer's work - the stage of critical realism.
Life suggested Dickens more and more new ideas. Before he had time to finish work on Oliver Twist, he began a new novel, Nicholas Nickleby (1839), and in 1839-1841 he published The Antiquities Shop and Barnaby Ridge.
Dickens's fame is growing. Almost all of his books were a resounding success. The remarkable English novelist was recognized not only in England, but also far beyond its borders.
Dickens the realist, a harsh critic of bourgeois orders, emerged in the 30s of the 19th century, when important socio-political changes were taking place in his homeland; the insightful artist could not help but see how the crisis of his contemporary social system was manifested in various spheres of life.
In England at this time there was a clear discrepancy between the economic and political organization of society. By the 30s of the 19th century, the so-called “industrial revolution” ended in the country, and the British kingdom became a major industrial power. Two new historical forces emerged in the public arena - the industrial bourgeoisie and the proletariat. But the political structure of the country remained the same as it was more than a hundred years ago. New industrial centers, numbering tens of thousands of people, had no representation in parliament. Deputies were still elected from some provincial town, which was completely dependent on the neighboring landowner. Parliament, to which reactionary conservative circles dictated their will, finally ceased to be a representative institution.
The struggle for parliamentary reform that unfolded in the country turned into a broad social movement. Under popular pressure, the reform was carried out in 1832. But only the industrial bourgeoisie, which rejected broad democratic reforms, took advantage of the fruits of victory. It was during this period that the complete contrast between the interests of the bourgeoisie and the people was determined. The political struggle in England has entered a new stage. Chartism arose in the country - the first organized mass revolutionary movement of the working class.
Respect for old fetishes was dying among the people. The growth of economic and social contradictions and the resulting Chartist movement caused an upsurge in public life in the country, which in turn affected the strengthening of the critical tendency in English literature. The looming problems of social reconstruction worried the minds of realist writers who thoughtfully studied reality. And the English critical realists lived up to the expectations of their contemporaries. They, each to the best of their insight, answered the questions posed by life, expressed the innermost thoughts of many millions of Englishmen.
The most talented and courageous of the representatives of the “brilliant school of English novelists,” as Marx called them (this included Charles Dickens, W. Thackeray, E. Gaskell, S. Bronte), was Charles Dickens. An outstanding artist who tirelessly drew his material from life, he was able to depict human character with great truthfulness. His heroes are endowed with genuine social typicality. From the vague opposition of “poor” and “rich”, characteristic of most of his contemporary writers, Dickens turned to the question of the real social contradictions of the era, speaking in his best novels about the contradiction between labor and capital, between the worker and the capitalist entrepreneur.
Despite their deeply correct assessment of many life phenomena, the English critical realists essentially did not put forward any positive social program. Rejecting the path of popular uprising, they did not see a real opportunity to resolve the conflict between poverty and wealth. The illusions inherent in English critical realism in general were also characteristic of Dickens. He was also sometimes inclined to think that evil people, of whom there are many in all levels of society, were to blame for the existing injustice, and hoped, by softening the hearts of those in power, to help the poor. This conciliatory moralizing tendency is present to varying degrees in all of Dickens's works, but it was especially pronounced in his A Christmas Stories (1843-1848).
However, "Christmas Stories" does not define his entire work. The forties were the period of greatest flowering of English critical realism, and for Dickens they marked the period that prepared the appearance of his most significant novels.
The writer’s trip to America, which he took in 1842, played a significant role in shaping Dickens’s views. If in his homeland Dickens, like most representatives of the English bourgeois intelligentsia, could have the illusion that the vices of contemporary social life were primarily due to the dominance of the aristocracy, then in America the writer saw the bourgeois legal order in its “pure form.”
American impressions, which served as material for “American Notes” (1842) and the novel “The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit” (1843-1844), helped the writer look into the very depths of the bourgeois world, and notice in his homeland such phenomena that are still escaped his attention.
The period of greatest ideological and creative maturity of Dickens begins. In 1848 - during the years of the new rise of Chartism and the emergence of a revolutionary situation in Europe - Dickens’s wonderful novel “Dombey and Son” was published, highly appreciated by V. G. Belinsky, in this book the realist artist moves on from criticizing certain aspects of contemporary reality to a direct denunciation of the entire bourgeois social system.
The Dombey and Son trading house is a small cell of a large whole. Contempt for man and the soulless, selfish calculation of Mr. Dombey personify, according to the artist’s plan, the main vices of the bourgeois world. The novel was conceived by Dickens as the story of Dombey's fall: life mercilessly takes revenge for trampled humanity, and victory goes to the inhabitants of the Wooden Midshipman's shop, who follow in their actions only the dictates of a good heart.
“Dombey and Son” opens the period of greatest ideological and creative maturity of the great realist. One of the last works of this period was the novel Bleak House, published in 1853.
In the novel Bleak House, Charles Dickens depicted both the public and private life of the English bourgeoisie with the mercilessness of a satirist. The writer sees his homeland as a gloomy, “cold house,” where the prevailing social laws oppress and cripple the souls of people, and he looks into the darkest corners of this big house.
In London there is all sorts of weather. But in Bleak House, Dickens most often paints us a picture of a foggy, autumn-gloomy London. The fog that shrouds Lincoln Fields, where the judges hearing the Jarndyce v. Jarndyce case has been sitting in the Lord Chancellor's Courthouse for many decades now, is especially rare. All their efforts are aimed at confusing an already complicated case in which some relatives dispute the rights of others to a long-defunct inheritance.
No matter how different the judges and lawyers are in their position and their individual characteristics, each located on the corresponding step of the hierarchical ladder of the British court, they are all united by the greedy desire to enslave the client, to take possession of his money and secrets. This is Mr. Tulkinghorn, a respectable gentleman whose soul resembles a safe keeping the terrible secrets of the best families in London. Such is the smooth-talking Mr. Kenge, who charms his charges like a boa constrictor of rabbits. Even young Guppy, who occupies one of the last places in the corporation of pulls and tricks, no matter what he has to face in life, operates primarily with the knowledge acquired in the office of Kenge and Carboy.
But perhaps the most typical of all the lawyers depicted in Bleak House is Mr. Vholes. A lean gentleman with a pimply, sallow face, always dressed in black and always correct, he will be remembered by the reader for a long time. Vholes talks all the time about his old father and three orphan daughters, to whom he allegedly strives to leave only a good NAME as an inheritance. In reality, he makes good money for them by robbing gullible clients. Ruthless in his greed, the hypocrite Vholes is a typical product of the puritanical morality of the bourgeois, and WE can easily find many of his ancestors among the satirical images of Fielding and Smollett.
Back in The Pickwick Club, Dickens told his readers the amusing story of how Mr. Pickwick was misled by the lawyers when he was brought to trial on a false charge of breaking his promise to marry his landlady, the Widow Bardle. We cannot help but laugh at the case of Hurdle v. Pickwick, although we feel sorry for the innocent hero who suffered. But the case of “Jarndyce v. Jarndyce” is depicted by the author in such gloomy tones that the fleeting smile caused by individual comical details of the story immediately disappears from the reader’s face. In Bleak House, Dickens tells the story of several generations of people embroiled in pointless litigation and handed over to greedy and soulless lawyers. The artist achieves enormous persuasiveness in his narrative - he shows the machine of English legal proceedings in action.
Many people, old and very young, completely broke and still rich, spend their lives in courtrooms. Here's little old Miss Flight. Who comes to the Supreme Court every day with her tattered reticule filled with half-decayed documents that have long lost all value. Even in her youth, she found herself entangled in some kind of litigation and all her life she did nothing but go to court. For Miss Flight, the whole world is limited to Lincoln Fields, where the Supreme Court is located. And the highest human wisdom is embodied by its head, the Lord Chancellor. But in moments, the old woman’s reason returns, and she sadly tells how, one after another, the birds, whom she christened Joy, Hope, Youth, Happiness, die in her pitiful closet.
Mr. Gridley, nicknamed here “the man from Shropshire,” also comes to court, a poor man whose strength and health were also consumed by judicial red tape. But if Miss Flight has come to terms with her fate, then Gridley’s soul is seething with indignation. He sees his mission in denouncing judges and lawyers. But Gridley cannot change the course of events. Tormented by life, tired and broken, he dies like a beggar in George's gallery.
Almost all of the Jarndyce v. Jarndyce litigants suffer the same fate as Flyte or Gridley. On the pages of the novel we see the life of a young man named Richard Carston. A distant relative of the Jarndyces. A handsome, cheerful young man, tenderly in love with his cousin Ada and dreaming of happiness with her. He gradually begins to become imbued with a general interest in the process. Already in the first chapters of the novel. When the crazy old lady Flight first appears before the happy Ada and Richard, Dickens seems to be revealing a symbol of their future. At the end of the book, the embittered Richard, tormented by consumption, having squandered all his and Ada’s funds in this lawsuit, reminds us of Gridley.
A lot of people became victims of the Jarndyce v. Jarndyce case, and in the end it turned out that there was no case at all. Because the money bequeathed by one of the Jarndyces went entirely to pay legal costs. People accepted the fiction, covered by the ostentatious splendor of English legislation, as reality. An invincible belief in the power of laws is one of the conventions of the English bourgeois society depicted by Dickens.
Dickens is especially outraged by the English aristocracy with its slavish adherence to empty fetishes and arrogant disregard for the environment. In Bleak House, this line of social criticism was embodied in the story of the Dedlock house.
In Chesney Wold, the Dedlock family estate. As majestic as they themselves are, the “color” of London society gathers, and Dickens paints them with all the power of his satirical talent. These are arrogant degenerates, parasites bored with idleness, greedy for other people's misfortunes. From the entire crowd of slanderous ladies and gentlemen who make up the background of Chesney-Wold, stands Volumnia Dedlock, in whom all the vices of high society are concentrated. This faded beauty from the younger branch of the Dedlocks divides her life between London and the fashionable resort of Bath, between the pursuit of suitors and the pursuit of an inheritance. She is envious and heartless, knows neither sincere sympathy nor compassion.
Dedlocks are the personification of British nobility. They preserve their family traditions and hereditary prejudices with equal pride. They firmly believe that all the best in the world should belong to them and be created for the sole purpose of serving their greatness. Having inherited their rights and privileges from their ancestors, they feel like owners not only in relation to things, but also in relation to people. The name Dedlock itself can be translated into Russian as “vicious circle”, “dead end”. Indeed. Deadlocks have long been frozen in one state. Life passes them by; they feel THAT events are developing, that new people have appeared in England - “iron masters” who are ready to declare their rights. Deadlocks are mortally afraid of everything new and therefore withdraw even more into their narrow little world, not allowing anyone from the outside and thereby hoping to protect their parks from the smoke of factories and factories.
But all the desires of the Dedlocks are powerless before the logic of history. And although Dickens seemingly exposes the Dedlocks only in the sphere of their private life, the book clearly sounds the theme of social retribution of the British aristocracy.
To show the entire illegality of the claims of the English nobility, Dickens chose the most ordinary detective story. The beautiful and majestic wife of Sir Leicester, destined to adorn the Dedlock family, turns out to be the former mistress of an unknown army captain and the mother of an illegitimate child.
Lady Dedlock's past stains her husband's family, and the law itself comes to the defense of the Dedlocks in the person of lawyer Tulkinghorn and detective Bucket. They are preparing punishment for Lady Dedlock not at the request of Sir Leicester, but because the Dedlock family is related to all these Doodles. Koodles, Noodles - masters of life, whose political reputation has been maintained in recent years with more and more difficulty.
However, the end of Lord and Lady Dedlock received a deeply humanistic solution from the pen of the great artist. In their grief, each of them overcame the conventions of social life that shackled him, and the blow that crushed the dignity of the titled spouses returned them to the people. Only the debunked Dedlocks, who had lost everything in the eyes of society, spoke the language of genuine human feelings that touch the reader to the depths of his soul.
The entire system of social relations, shown by the realist writer in Bleak House, is designed to protect the inviolability of the bourgeois legal order. This purpose is served by British legislation and the conventions of the world, with the help of which a select few are fenced off from the huge mass of their compatriots, brought up from childhood in respect for such principles, people are so imbued with them that they often free themselves from them only at the cost of their own lives.
The inhabitants of the “cold house” are obsessed with the thirst for money. Because of money, members of the Jarndyce family have hated each other for several generations and dragged them through the courts. Brother confronts brother over a dubious inheritance, the owner of which, perhaps, did not bequeath to him even a silver spoon.
For the sake of wealth and position in society, the future Lady Dedlock abandons her loved one and the joys of motherhood and becomes the wife of an old baronet. She, like Edith Dombey, the heroine of the novel Dombey and Son, exchanged her freedom for the apparent prosperity of a rich home, but found only misfortune and shame there.
Greedy for profit, lawyers deceive their clients day and night, moneylenders and detectives come up with cunning plans. Money penetrated every corner of public and private life in Dickens's contemporary England. And the whole country seems to him like one big family, quarreling over a huge inheritance.
In this society, poisoned by self-interest, two types of people easily develop. Such are Smallweed and Skimpole. Smallweed embodies the typical characteristics of those who actively use the right to rob and deceive. Dickens deliberately exaggerates the colors, trying to show how disgusting is the appearance of a person for whom acquisitiveness becomes the goal and meaning of life. This small, weak old man is endowed with enormous spiritual energy, aimed exclusively at building cruel intrigues against his neighbors. He carefully monitors everything that happens around him, lying in wait for his prey. The image of Smallweed embodies a bourgeois individual contemporary to Dickens, inspired only by the thirst for enrichment, which he vainly masks with hypocritical moral maxims.
The opposite of Smallweed. It would seem, Mr. Skimpole imagines, a kind of resident in the house of John Jarndyce, a cheerful, good-looking gentleman who wants to live for his own pleasure. Skimpole is not a money-grubber; he only takes advantage of the dishonest machinations of the smallwids.
The same social system, which is based on deception and oppression, gave birth to both smallluids and skimpoles. Each of them complements the other. The only difference between them is that the first expresses the position of people who actively use existing norms of social life, while the second uses them passively. Smallweed hates the poor: each of them, in his opinion, is ready to encroach on his money. Skimpole is deeply indifferent to them and just doesn’t want the ragamuffins to come into his sight. This selfish epicurean, who puts his own comfort above all else, like the representatives of the British aristocracy, does not know the value of money and despises all activity. It is no coincidence that he evokes such sympathy from Sir Lester Dedlock, who feels a kindred spirit in him.
Smallweed and Skimpole are a symbolic generalization of those. Among whom are material benefits distributed in bourgeois England?
Dickens tried to contrast Dedlock and Skimpole, who mercilessly plunder the fruits of the people's labor, with the hoarding of Smallweed, the young enterprising entrepreneur Rouncewell, whose figure is noticeably idealized. The writer saw only the ways in which Rouncewell differed from Dedlock and Skimpole, but did not notice how he was similar to Smallweed. Naturally, such an image could not have been successful for the realist Dickens. Less than a year later, Rouncewell was replaced by the manufacturer Bounderbrby from the novel Hard Times (1854), which embodied all the callousness and cruelty of his class.
Having correctly identified the contradiction between the aristocracy and the industrial bourgeoisie, Dickens also understood the main social conflict of the era - the conflict between the ruling classes as a whole and the people. The pages of his novels, telling about the plight of ordinary workers, best speak of why the honest and insightful artist wrote his books.
The poor are deprived of their rights and deprived of illusions about the prosperity of their homeland. The inhabitants of dilapidated houses, and more often of London pavements and parks, know well how difficult it is to live in a “cold house”.
Each of the poor people portrayed by Dickens in the novel has his own personality. Such is Goose, a little servant in Mr. Snagsby's house, a lonely orphan, sickly and downtrodden. She is all embodied fear of life, of people. The expression of fear is forever frozen on her face, and everything that happens in the Cooks Court alley fills the girl’s heart with trembling despair.
Joe from the Lonely Tom neighborhood often comes here to Cooks Court Lane. No one can really say where Joe lives or how he hasn't starved to death yet. The boy has no relatives or relatives; he sweeps the pavements, carries out small errands, wanders the streets until somewhere he stumbles upon a policeman who chases him from everywhere: “Come on in, don’t linger!..” “Come on in,” always “go on through” somewhere - that’s the only word , which Joe hears from people is the only thing he knows. Homeless tramp Joe is the embodiment of painful ignorance. “I don’t know, I don’t know anything...” Joe answers all questions, and how much great human resentment is heard in these words! Joe gropes through life, vaguely aware that there is some kind of injustice going on in the world around him. He would like to know why he exists in the world, why other people live, that Joe is the way he is, my lords and eminences, “the reverend and unlike ministers of all cults,” are to blame. It is them who the realist Dickens blames for the life and death of Joe.
This is the story of one of the many inhabitants of the Lonely Tom quarter. Like a London tramp, the forgotten Lonely Tom is lost somewhere between the fashionable houses of the rich, and none of these well-fed people wants to know where he is, what he is like. Lonely Tom becomes a symbol of the difficult fate of working London in the novel.
Most of the inhabitants of Lonely Tom accept their suffering without complaint. Only among the brickworkers who huddle in miserable hovels near London does their half-starved existence give rise to protest. And although Dickens is saddened by the bitterness of the brickmakers, he still thinks about their history.
Servants and maidservants, poor people and beggars, eccentric renegades, somehow earning their bread, crowd the pages of Bleak House. They are the good geniuses of those events that are unraveled by the clever hand of an artist who knew well that little people are involved in big things. Each of these humble workers has a role to play in the events described, and it is difficult to imagine what the outcome of the novel would have been without the old campaigner George Rouncewell or the homeless Joe.
Dickens talks about all these nice and honest people in one of his best works. He takes his readers to the stinking slums of Lonely Tom, to the rickety huts of brick workers, where wind and cold easily penetrate, to attics where hungry children sit locked up until the evening. The story of how people who are naturally kinder and more sympathetic than many rich people suffer from hunger and die in poverty sounds from the lips of an English realist as a cruel denunciation of the ruling system.
Dickens was never able to free himself from his liberal illusions. He believed that the situation of English workers would radically improve if the ruling classes were imbued with sympathy for them and care for them. However, the writer's observations conflicted with his utopian dreams. Thus, on the pages of his novels, starting with The Pickwick Club, grotesque images of various gentlemen from charitable societies appeared, whose activities serve anything - personal enrichment, ambitious plans, but not helping the disadvantaged.
But, perhaps, the writer was most successful with the philanthropists from Bleak House - Jellyby, Chadband and others. Mrs. Jellyby is one of those who has devoted her life to charity, from morning to night she is absorbed in the worries associated with missionary work in Africa, while her own family declines. Mrs. Jellyby's daughter, Caddy, runs away from home, and the other children, ragged and hungry, suffer all sorts of misadventures. The husband goes broke; the servants steal the remaining goods. All the Jellybys, young and old, are in a pitiful state, and the mistress sits in her office above a mountain of correspondence, and her eyes are fixed on Africa, where the “natives” under her care live in the village of Boriobulagha. Caring for one's fellow man begins to seem like selfishness, and Mrs. Jellyby ends up not much different from old Mr. Turveydrop, who is concerned only with his own person.
Mrs. Jellyby's "Telescopic Philanthropy" is a symbol of English charity. When homeless children die nearby, on the next street, the English bourgeoisie send soul-saving brochures to the Boryobul Negroes, who are cared about only because they may not even exist in the world.
All the benefactors from Bleak House, including Pardiggle, Quayle and Gusher, are extremely unattractive in appearance and unpleasant manners, talk a lot about loving the poor, but have not yet performed a single good deed. These are selfish people, often people with a very dubious reputation, who, although they talk about mercy, care only about their own good. Mr. Gusher makes a solemn speech to the students of the orphan school, convincing them to contribute their pennies and half-pens for a gift to Mr. Quayle, and he himself has already received a donation at the request of Mr. Quayle. Mrs. Pardiggle uses exactly the same methods. A look of rage appears on the faces of her five sons when this terrifying-looking woman loudly proclaims how much each of her little ones has donated to one or another charitable cause.
Preacher Chadband is supposed to instruct in good deeds, but his very name has passed from Dickens's novel into the general English dictionary to mean "unctuous hypocrite."
The figure of Chadband embodies the hypocrisy of English charity. Chadband understood his mission well - to protect the well-fed from the hungry. Like any preacher, he is busy making sure that the poor are less bothered by the rich with complaints and requests, and for this purpose he intimidates them with his sermons. Chadband's image is revealed already in his first meeting with Joe. Sitting in front of the hungry boy and devouring one tartine after another, he makes his endless speeches about human dignity and love for one's neighbor, and then drives the ragged boy away, ordering him to come again for an edifying conversation.
Dickens understood that the English poor would not receive help from people like Quayle, Gusher and Chadband, although they needed it more and more. But Dickens was able to contrast the sanctimonious official charity only with the private philanthropy of the good rich.
The favorite heroes of the author of “Bleak House” - John Jarndyce and Esther Summerson - are driven only by the desire to help the unfortunate. They save little Charlie, her brother and sister from poverty, help Joe, the brickmakers, Flight, Gridley, George Rouncewell and his devoted Phil. But how little does this mean in front of the enormous disasters that are fraught with “Bleak House” - the birthplace of Dickens! How many needy people can the good Mr. Snagsby give his half-crowns to? Will the young doctor of Woodcourt Alley visit all the sick and dying in the London slums? Esther takes little Charlie in with her, but she is powerless to help Joe. Jarndyce's money is also of little use. Instead of helping the poor, he finances Jellyby's senseless activities and supports the parasite Skimpole. True, sometimes doubts creep into his soul. At such moments, Jarndyce is in the habit of complaining about the “east wind,” which, no matter how you warm the “cold house,” penetrates its many cracks and carries away all the heat.
The originality of Dickens's writing style appears with great clarity in his novel Bleak House. The writer walked through life, looking closely at everything, not missing a single expressive detail of human behavior, not a single unique feature of the world around him. Things and phenomena take on an independent life for him. They know the secret of each of the heroes and predict his fate. The trees in Chesney Wold Park whisper ominously about Honoria Dedlock's past and future. The Roman warrior depicted on the ceiling of Mr. Tulkinghorn's room has long been pointing to the floor - to the very place where the body of the murdered lawyer was eventually found. The cracks in the shutters of Nemo's scribe's pitiful closet resemble someone's eyes, which look at everything that happens in the Cook's Court alley with either a curiously intent or an ominously mysterious gaze.
Dickens's creative idea is revealed not only through the thoughts and actions of the characters, but also through the entire figurative structure of the novel. Dickens's realistic symbolism recreates the entire complex interweaving of human destinies and the internal development of the plot. The writer succeeds in this because the symbol is not introduced by him into the novel, but grows out of life, as the most prominent expression of its tendencies and patterns. Not concerned about petty plausibility
And where Dickens deviates from the truth of life, he is weaker as an artist. Two characters fall out of the novel’s figurative system and, as characters, are inferior to its other characters. This is John Jarndyce and Esther Summerson. Jarndyce is perceived by the reader in only one capacity - a kind, slightly grumpy guardian, who seems to be called upon to look after all of humanity. Esther Summerson, on whose behalf the narrative is told in individual chapters, is endowed with nobility and prudence, but sometimes falls into “humiliation rather than pride,” which does not fit with her general appearance. Jarndyce and Hester are deprived of much life-like verisimilitude, since the writer made them carriers of his self-defeating tendency - to make everyone happy equally in a society built on the principle: the happiness of some is bought at the price of the misfortune of others.
Bleak House, like almost all of Dickens's novels, has a happy ending. The Jarndyce v. Jarndyce trial is over. Esther married her beloved Allen Woodcourt. George Rouncewell returned to his mother and brother. Peace reigned in Snagsby's house; The Begnet family found well-deserved peace. And yet, the gloomy tones in which the entire novel is written do not soften even at the end of the book. After the successful completion of the events told by the author of Bleak House, only a few of his heroes remained alive, and if happiness befell them, it was cruelly overshadowed by memories of past losses.
Already in “Bleak House” the pessimism that permeated Dickens’s last six novels was evident. The feeling of powerlessness in the face of complex social conflicts, the feeling of the worthlessness of the reforms he proposed were a source of deep sadness for the writer. He knew his contemporary society too well not to see how natural poverty, oppression, and loss of human values were in it.
Dickens's novels are strong with great life truth. They truly reflected his era, the hopes and sorrows, aspirations and sufferings of many thousands of the writer’s contemporaries, who, although they were the creators of all the good in the country, found themselves deprived of basic human rights. In defense of the simple worker, one of the first in his homeland to raise his voice was the great English realist Charles Dickens, whose works became part of the classical heritage of the English people.
Charles Dickens House Museum in London (London, UK) - exhibitions, opening hours, address, phone numbers, official website.
In London, in a beautifully restored house at 48 Doughty Street, in the Holborn district, there is a piece of Victorian England, a piece of its history, the life of old England. This is the House-Museum of the great English writer Charles Dickens, the author of such famous works as “The Adventures of Oliver Twist”, “David Copperfield”, “A Tale of Two Cities”, “Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club” and many others that brought him fame and recognition.
Until recently, it was an ordinary old house on Doughty Street - few people knew anything about it. In 1923, they even decided to demolish it, but through the efforts of the Dickens Society, the building was purchased, and the Charles Dickens Museum was created in it, which for a long time was of interest exclusively to literary scholars and students of literary departments of educational institutions. And so, on the eve of the bicentenary, the increased interest in the writer and his work bore fruit - the museum was updated and restored. It was opened to the public on December 10, 2012, just a month after work began.
This is the only house that has survived to this day, where the writer Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine (1837-1839) once lived. Master restorers used all their skills and efforts to recreate the authentic atmosphere of this unique house. The furnishings and most of the things once belonged to Dickens and his family.
Here you get the feeling that the writer went out somewhere for a while and will soon enter the doors of his home. It was in this house that his novel “Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club” was completed and “The Adventures of Oliver Twist” was written, his two daughters were born here (10 children in total), and his sister Mary died at the age of 17. It was here that he achieved fame and universal recognition as the world's greatest storyteller.
The Charles Dickens House Museum reproduces a typical 19th-century English home of a middle-class family: a kitchen with all the utensils, a bedroom with a magnificent four-poster bed, a very nice living room, a dining room with a dining table set with Victorian plates with images of Dickens himself and his friends.
The second floor is the writer's creative studio with his wardrobe, desk and chair, shaving kit, manuscripts and first editions of his books. Here you can also see paintings, portraits of the writer, his personal belongings and letters. Walking through the halls of the museum, looking at its exhibits and pictures from the life of old London, you can imagine the city as Dickens saw it: with stagecoaches and gas lamps, models of which are also in the museum.
In addition, the museum stores sets, interior items and costume models for films based on the works of this remarkable master of the pen.
The museum, located at London, WC1N 2LX, 48 Doughty Street, can be reached by tube from Chancery Lane, Holborn (Central Line), Russell Square (Piccadilly Line), or Kings Cross St. Pancras", or by buses 7, 17, 19, 38, 45, 46, 55, 243.
The museum is open to the public from Monday to Sunday from 10:00 to 17:00, closed on holidays. The ticket office is open until 16:00.
Entry: GBP 9.50, children under 6 years free.
Prices on the page are as of November 2019.
