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Stranger Than Fiction? The Jennens Inheritance in Fact and Fiction Part Two: The Business of Fortune Hunting

The first part of this article ((2003) 32(3) CLWR 211) outlined the early history of the Jennens family and the origins of the fortune of William Jennens, whose death in 1798 led to the litigation which is often described as the model for the case of Jarndyce v Jarndyce in Charles Dickens's novel, Bleak House. In addition to the series of law suits described in Part One, the second part shows that many other men and women from the British Isles and abroad (especially from the USA) made claims to be entitled to some or all of ‘William the Rich's' fortune. The article seeks to explain why this particular inheritance should have generated such exceptional interest and situates the claims in the context of both real and fictional fortune hunting in Victorian England, a species of litigation scarcely examined by historians. It concludes by examining how far the Jennens saga supports Dickens's attack on the workings of the legal system.