Mr. John Jarndyce Timeline and Summary

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• Jarndyce inherits Bleak House from his uncle Tom Jarndyce, after the sad dude shoots himself. He restores the house and starts to do a lot of philanthropic work.
• When Esther is 12, he gets a letter from Miss Barbary, who asks him to look after Esther when Miss Barbary dies. He sends his lawyer Kenge to go look at the girl.
• On Miss Barbary's death, Jarndyce enrolls Esther in school. On the carriage ride there, he stealth-meets her in disguise.
• Six years later Jarndyce collects Richard and Ada (his cousins) and Esther to be his wards. Esther is made housekeeper of Bleak House.
• He introduces the gang to his friends and parasites: Mrs. Jellyby, Mrs. Pardiggle, Skimpole, and Boythorn. He's troubled to hear some not-so-flattering things about some of them.
• Jarndyce tries to find Richard a profession, apprenticing him to a doctor.
• In London he comes with Esther to meet Miss Flite. There he is accosted by Krook, who shows him the bizarre way he's teaching himself to read and write.
• Soon he finds the orphaned Neckett children and meets Gridley, the miserable ex-farmer obsessed with his court case.
• Jarndyce fills Esther in on what he knows about her parents: not too much.
• He helps Richard abandon medicine and start to study the law instead.
• The gang goes to visit Jarndyce's friend Boythorn, the Dedlocks' neighbor. There he chats briefly with Lady Dedlock while out for a walk.
• When they return to Bleak House, Jarndyce hires Charley Neckett as Esther's maid and sends the other Neckett children to school.
• Richard tells Jarndyce that since their interests in the Jarndyce case are not the same, they can no longer be friends.
• Jarndyce convinces Ada and Richard to break off their engagement until they're a little older.
• In London, Jarndyce comes to Gridley's deathbed and meets Mr. George and detective Bucket.
• On Esther's advice, Jarndyce takes in the sick Jo for a night.
• After Esther's illness he suggests she go recuperate at Boythorn's house and comes to visit her there often.
• When she comes back to Bleak House, Jarndyce writes Esther a long letter and proposes marriage. She says yes.
• Soon, though, he begins to realize that Woodcourt and Esther love each other, so he devises a scheme to get the two of them together.
• Jarndyce witnesses Jo's death.
• After Tulkinghorn's murder, Jarndyce tries to convince George to defend himself again the charges against him by hiring a lawyer.
• He helps Esther get over the death of her mother, then tries his best to convince Richard to give up on the Court of Chancery. No luck there, though.
• At long last he tricks Esther into thinking they have set a date for their wedding, when all along he has been building a house for her and Woodcourt to move into.
• He surprises Esther with the new Bleak House.
• After Richard's death, Jarndyce becomes a father to Ada and a grandfather to Richard Jr., a baby he doesn't live to see.