num_pages: 320
description: Written deliberately to increase the circulation of Dickens's weekly magazine HOUSEHOLD WORDS, HARD TIMES was a huge and instantaneous success upon publication in 1854. Yet this novel is not the cheerful celebration of Victorian life one might have expected from the beloved author of PICKWICK PAPERS and THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. Compressed, stark, allegorical, it is a bitter expose of capitalist explotation during the Industrial Revolution--and a fierce denunciation of the philosophy of materialism, which treathens the human imagination in all times and places. With a typically unforgettable cast of characters--including the heartless fact-worshipper Professor Gradgrind, the warmly endearing Sissy Jupe and the eternally noble Stephen Blackpool--HARD TIMES carries a uniquely powerful message and remains one of the most widely read of Dickens's major novels.
language: English
title: Hard Times
titlecomplete: Hard Times
characters: Stephen Blackpool, Louisa Gradgrind, Mr. M'Choakumchild, Mrs. Sparsit, Sissy Jupe, Josiah Bounderby, Thomas Gradgrind, James Harthouse
genres: Fiction, 19th Century, Classics, British Literature, School, Classic Literature, Historical Fiction, Literature, Victorian, Novels
ratings_count: 66500
places: Coketown
publisher: Bantam Classics