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Brilliant Beginnings: Bleak House episode artwork

Feb 2, 2026 17 min

Brilliant Beginnings: Bleak House

from Talk Write Hosted by Brandon Cook

In this series, I’ll be looking at some opening pages and talking about what makes them so great. Today, I’m beginning with Dickens’s “Bleak House.” It’s an opening I’ve covered before on my podcast, but there’s still so much to talk about. In twopages, Dickens not only manages to create one of the most unforgettable images of London fog, he does so while combining character, theme, and even plot, and all in a luxurious prose style that relishes words and never comes across as merely descriptive. Get full access to Talk Write at brandoncookwriter.substack.com/subscribe

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Brilliant Beginnings: Bleak House

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This episode is 17 minutes long.

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This episode was published on February 2, 2026.

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