description: In the squalor of a textile town, successful businessman and arch-pragmatist Thomas Gradgrind, proclaiming that he is a self-made man, teaches his children to suppress their imagination and embrace hard facts. He arranges the marriage of his daughter Louisa to Josiah Bounderby, an unattractive, boastful manufacturer who is thirty years older than she. Gradgrind believes that he has succeeded as a father when his son Thomas goes to work in Bounderby's bank. When Tom steals from his employer and Louisa flees the horror of her marriage, Gradgrind must acknowledge the error of his lifelong devotion to facts and utility.
language: English
title: Hard Times
titlecomplete: Hard Times
characters: Mr. M'Choakumchild, Mrs. Sparsit, Stephen Blackpool, Louisa Gradgrind, James Harthouse, Sissy Jupe, Josiah Bounderby, Thomas Gradgrind
genres: Literature, Classics, School, Novels, Classic Literature, Victorian, 19th Century, Historical Fiction, Fiction, British Literature
ratings_count: 66502
places: Coketown
publisher: Phoenix Audio