Legal case casesby a title of the form "Claimant v Defendant" (e.g. "Arkell v Pressdram"). Where a legal proceeding does not have formally designated adverse parties, a form such as "In re", "Re" or "In the matter of" is used (e.g. "In re Gault"). The "v" separating the parties is an abbreviation of the Latin versus, but, when spoken in Commonwealth countries, it is normally rendered as "and" or "against" (as in, for example, Charles Dickens' "Jarndyce and Jarndyce"). Where it is considered necessary to protect the anonymity of a natural person, some cases may have one or both parties replaced by
Bleak House culminated in the enactment of legal reform in the 1870s. There is some debate among scholars as to 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. Sir Leicester Dedlock and his wife Honoria live on his estate at Chesney Wold. Unknown to Sir Leicester, before she married, Lady Dedlock had a lover, Captain Hawdon, and had a daughter by him. Lady Dedlock believes her daughter is dead. The daughter, Esther, is in fact alive and