It is in Bleak House that Dickens the realist and Dickens the modernist are often thought to meet. In the two intertwined but separate narratives, one from a woman's perspective and the other forming, arguably, the first detective novel in English, Dickens confronts modern England and modernity itself. The essays collected in this New Casebook embody some of the most exciting and challenging approaches to Dickens, using deconstructive, feminist, Marxist and post-structuralist methods. The Introduction places the various essays in the context of current critical thinking, while itself suggesting an alternative viewpoint and the potential direction of future analysis of this most rewarding and stimulating text.