num_pages: 464
description: By 1854, when Hard Times was published, Charles Dickens' magisterial progress as a writer had come to incorporate a many-sided, coherent vision of English society, both as it was and as he wished it to be. Hard Times, a classic Dickensian story of redemption set in a North of England town beset by industrialism, everywhere benefits from this vision - in the trenchancy of its satire, in its sweeping indignation at social injustice, and in the persistent humanity with which its author enlivens his largest and smallest incidents.
language: English
title: Hard Times
titlecomplete: Hard Times (The World's Classics)
characters: Stephen Blackpool, Sissy Jupe, James Harthouse, Thomas Gradgrind, Josiah Bounderby, Mr. M'Choakumchild, Louisa Gradgrind, Mrs. Sparsit
genres: Fiction, British Literature, Classic Literature, School, Literature, Classics, Novels, 19th Century, Historical Fiction, Victorian
ratings_count: 66502
places: Coketown
publisher: Oxford University Press