Other editions of book Hard Times

Hard Times is regarded as one of Dickens' darker novels. It introduces the character of Thomas Gradgrind. Like many of Dickens' characters, Gradgrind's name tells the reader much of what they need to know. As schoolmaster Gradgrind says, "Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!" Gradgrind's factual upbringing dooms his children, Tom and Louisa, in different ways. The book is set in "Coketown," an industrial city. Because of its treatment of the role of factory work, as well as education, in society, Hard Times was thought to be a "socialist" work at the time of its publication. It was also written during a time when Dickens was experiencing trouble in his own marriage, and it features a number of unhappy couples and much family discord. Less popular at its publication than many of other Dickens' works, Hard Times remains one of the most-taught of Dickens' major books, possibly because of the group, it is the shortest.

Hard Times is unusual in several respects. It is by far the shortest of Dickens' novels, barely a quarter of the length of those written immediately before and after it. Also, unlike all but one of his other novels, Hard Times has neither a preface nor illustrations. Moreover, it is his only novel not to have scenes set in London. Instead the story is set in the fictitious Victorian industrial Coketown, a generic Northern English mill-town, in some ways similar to Manchester, though smaller. Coketown may be partially based on 19th-century Preston. One of Dickens's reasons for writing Hard Times was that sales of his weekly periodical, Household Words, were low, and it was hoped the novel's publication in instalments would boost circulation – as indeed proved to be the case. Since publication it has received a mixed response from critics. Critics such as George Bernard Shaw and Thomas Macaulay have mainly focused on Dickens's treatment of trade unions and his post–Industrial Revolution pessimism regarding the divide between capitalist mill owners and undervalued workers during the Victorian era. F. R. Leavis, a great admirer of the book, included it—but not Dickens' work as a whole—as part of his Great Tradition of English novels.

Charles Dickens was one of the greatest authors in history. Dickens's books, which feature some of the most famous fictional characters, were very successful during his lifetime and they remain just as popular and celebrated today. Most students can't get through high school without reading a couple of Dickens's classic stories and there are many college courses dedicated to his literature. Hard Times, published in 1854, is a novel that depicts some of the social and economic pressures in English society during Dickens's time.

"Facts alone are wanted in life." The children at Mr Gradgrind's school are sternly ordered to stifle their imaginations and pay attention only to cold, hard reality. They live in a smoky, troubled industrial town where entertainment is hard to come by and resentments run deep. The effects of Gradgrind's teaching on his own children, Tom and Louisa, are particularly profound and leave them ill-equipped to deal with the unpredictable desires of the human heart. Luckily for them they have a friend in Sissy Jupe, the child of a circus clown, who retains her warm-hearted, compassionate nature despite the pressures around her.