Bleak House filmed in 1920 and 1922. The latter version featured Sybil Thorndike as Lady Dedlock. In 1928, a short film made in the UK in the Phonofilm sound-on-film process starred Bransby Williams as Grandfather Smallweed. In 1998, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a radio adaptation of five hour-long episodes, starring Michael Kitchen as John Jarndyce. The BBC has produced three television adaptations of "Bleak House". The first serial, "Bleak House", was broadcast in 1959 in eleven half-hour episodes. The second "Bleak House", starring Diana Rigg and Denholm Elliott, aired in 1985 as an eight-part series. In 2005, the third "Bleak House" was
Bleak House written in her voice. Like most Dickens novels, "Bleak House" was published in 20 monthly instalments, each containing 32 pages of text and two illustrations by Phiz (the last two being published together as a double issue). Each cost one shilling, except for the final double issue, which cost two shillings. Charles Dickens, "Bleak House", ed. Nicola Bradbury (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996) Bleak House Bleak House is a novel by English author Charles Dickens, first published as a serial between March 1852 and September 1853. The novel has many characters and several sub-plots, and the story is told partly by the