Bleak House is a novel by English author Charles Dickens, first published as a 20-episode serial between 12 March 1852 and 12 September 1853. The novel has many characters and several subplots, and is told partly by the novel's heroine, Esther Summerson, and partly by an omniscient narrator. At the centre of Bleak House is a long-running legal case in the Court of Chancery, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, which comes about because a testator has written several conflicting wills. In a preface to the 1853 first edition, Dickens said there were many actual precedents for his fictional case. One such was probably Thellusson v Woodford, in which a will read in 1797 was contested and not determined until 1859. Though many in the legal profession criticised Dickens's satire as exaggerated, Bleak House helped support a judicial reform movement that culminated in the enactment of legal reform in the 1870s.

Some scholars debate when Bleak House is set. The English legal historian Sir William Holdsworth sets the action in 1827; however, reference to preparation for the building of a railway in Chapter LV suggests the 1830s. A work of Gothic fiction depicting London as a murky city swathed in fog, Bleak House is credited with introducing urban fog to the novel, which would become a frequent characteristic of urban Gothic literature and film. Released in 1901, the Bleak House-inspired The Death of Poor Joe is the earliest filmed adaptation of a Dickens work.

Jarndyce and Jarndyce is an interminable probate case in the Court of Chancery concerning two or more wills and their beneficiaries. Lady Honoria Dedlock, the beneficiary of one of the wills, lives with her husband, Sir Leicester Dedlock, at his estate at Chesney Wold. While listening to the reading by Mr Tulkinghorn, the family solicitor, of an affidavit, Lady Dedlock recognises the handwriting on the copy. The sight affects her so much she almost faints, which Mr Tulkinghorn notices and investigates. He traces the copyist, a pauper known only as "Nemo", in London. Nemo has recently died, and the only person to identify him is a street-sweeper, a poor homeless boy named Jo, who lives in a particularly grim and poverty-stricken part of the city known as Tom-All-Alone's.

Esther Summerson is raised by the harsh Miss Barbary, who tells her, "Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers." After Miss Barbary dies, John Jarndyce becomes Esther's guardian and assigns "Conversation" Kenge, a Chancery lawyer, to take charge of her future. After attending school for six years, Esther moves in with Jarndyce at his home, Bleak House. Jarndyce simultaneously assumes custody of two other wards, his cousins Richard Carstone and Ada Clare. They are beneficiaries in one of the wills at issue in Jarndyce and Jarndyce; their guardian is a beneficiary under another will, and the two wills conflict.

Richard and Ada soon fall in love, but though Jarndyce does not oppose the match, he stipulates that Richard must first choose a profession. Richard first tries a career in medicine, and Esther meets Allan Woodcourt, a physician, at the house of Richard's tutor. When Richard mentions the prospect of gaining from the resolution of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Jarndyce beseeches him never to put faith in what he calls "the family curse." Richard decides to change his career to law, then later switches again and spends the remainder of his funds to buy a commission as a military officer.

Lady Dedlock—disguised as her maid, Mademoiselle Hortense—pays Jo to take her to Nemo's grave. Meanwhile, Mr Tulkinghorn is concerned Lady Dedlock has a secret which could threaten the interests of Sir Leicester and watches her constantly, even enlisting the real Hortense to spy on her. He also enlists Inspector Bucket to run Jo out of town, to eliminate anything that might connect Nemo to the Dedlocks. Esther sees Lady Dedlock at church and later talks with her at Chesney Wold.

Lady Dedlock discovers that Esther is her own child: unknown to Sir Leicester, before she married, Honoria had had a lover, Captain Hawdon (Nemo), and bore a daughter by him, who she had believed was dead. The daughter, Esther, was brought up by Honoria's sister, Miss Barbary. Esther becomes ill (possibly with smallpox, since it severely disfigures her) from Jo. Lady Dedlock waits until she has recovered before telling her the truth. Though the two women are happy to be reunited, Lady Dedlock tells Esther they must never acknowledge their connection again.

Upon recovery, Esther finds that Richard, having failed at several professions, has ignored Jarndyce's advice and is trying to push Jarndyce and Jarndyce to conclusion in his and Ada's favour, and as a result has fallen out with Jarndyce. In the process, Richard loses all his money and declines in health. He and Ada have secretly married, and Ada is pregnant. Esther has her own romance when Mr Woodcourt returns to England, having survived a shipwreck, and he continues to seek her company despite her disfigurement. However, Esther has already agreed to marry her guardian, the much older Jarndyce.