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 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