Bleak House being raised by Miss Barbary, Lady Dedlock's sister. Esther does not know Miss Barbary is her aunt. After Miss Barbary dies, John Jarndyce becomes Esther's guardian and assigns the Chancery lawyer "Conversation" Kenge to take charge of her future. After attending school for six years, Esther moves in with him at Bleak House. Jarndyce simultaneously assumes custody of two other wards, Richard Carstone and Ada Clare (who are both his and one another's distant cousins). 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
My Companions in the Bleak House in the Bleak House" a "stunning tour-de-force". It won the Tom Stoppard Prize in 1984 for the best work of Czechoslovak unofficial literature. Attention has been paid to the fact that the book focuses exclusively on the stories of women, and particularly women in prison. "My Companions in the Bleak House" was made into a four-part miniseries for Czech Television in 1992, starring Ivana Chýlková. The four 70-minute episodes were written by Kantůrková with Václav Šašek. They were re-broadcast in 2001 and again in 2017, in commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of Charter 77. At the 1994 Festival International de