AN NYONE WHO HAS given much thought to the title of Bleak House may have responded initially with surprise at Dickens's choice; for of all the examples of cheerless households scattered throughout the novel, Bleak House itself is in fact the least bleak; and "Chesney Wold" or "Krook's House" might seem more appropriate. Dickens himself toyed with the idea of calling his novel after one of the more obviously bleak houses in the story, and "Tom-all-Alone's" was the first title drafted for the book.' The name of any single one of the deteriorating buildings in the story could not, however, encompass the vast range of sorrow and decay which Bleak House contains; and Dickens turned to a more symbolic structure for the naming of his work. In calling his novel Bleak House he accomplished three things: he left room for a general reading of the title which would include every form of gloomy housing to be found in the course of the story; he presented in his title a symbol set somewhat apart from the widespread desolation of the book, a symbol which emblemizes the state of Victorian society found in the general world of Bleak House and yet rises above this state to offer in the particular Bleak House world a certain perspective and glimpse of solution; and finally, the extraordinary complexity of the title allows for yet another symbol, for Bleak House architecturally parallels the actual plot structure of the novel, adding one further winding passageway to a book which deals with a world made stagnant by just such compound complexity. It is the purpose of this paper to explore the various ramifi-