"Save England before it blows up, like the springing of a mine" (Hillis-Miller 1998, 31) is the warning embedded in Charles Dickens's Bleak House, though it seems far from the time in which the novel was born. The 1850's saw the staging of the Great Exhibition, an event through which England could boast, according to the Times, "of that day when all ages and climes shall be gathered round the throne of the maker" (Schlicke, p48). Dickens was most certainly not to be found amongst this inertia of idol worship. For the novelist, the year was not one that should inspire celebration or s...

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