Chancery and Bleak House
I find probate and trust administration to be fascinating business, but it's rarely the subject of art and literature. One major exception is Charles Dickens' Bleak House, which involves chancery proceedings in the interminable case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce. The case is described by one of the characters as follows in Chapter 8:
"it was about a Will when it was about anything.... A certain Jarndyce, in an evil hour, made a great fortune, and made a great Will. In the question how the trusts under that Will are to be administered, the fortune left by the Will is squandered away."
Bleak House is also the subject of a new adaptation starting tomorrow night (and running through February 26) on "Masterpiece Theater" (check local listings). The reviews are starting to come in, and they're very good -- Nancy deWolf Smith, writing in today's Wall Street Journal, called it "perhaps the most glorious Masterpiece Theater of all time."
I'm working my way through the book right now, and hope to have a review when I'm finished (which may not be very soon -- my edition runs 989 pages, not including notes).
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