I wonder if Esther Summerson in Charles Dickens’ Bleak House is as unpopular with today’s young readers as she was in my student days? How we sneered with contempt and impatience when her diffident, self-effacing voice took over the narrative. The coyness and self-consciousness with which she reveals her story and her character still jar … Continue reading Dickens’ Damaged Women — Esther Summerson in Bleak House