Hard Times
Hard Times by Charles Dickens, published by Wordsworth Editions in 1995, is a notable work that explores the challenges of life in the fictional mid-Victorian industrial town of Coketown. This edition, released in 1998, spans 229 pages and is presented in English. The narrative contrasts the grim realities of factory life under the strict utilitarian Thomas Gradgrind and the factory owner Josiah Bounderby with the joy brought by Mr. Sleary’s Horse-Riding circus, offering a glimpse into the lives of the downtrodden workers.
Readers will find a rich depiction of family life and political themes woven throughout the story, as Dickens critiques the harsh conditions faced by the working class. The illustrations by F. Walker and Maurice Greiffenhagen enhance the text, providing visual context to the struggles and joys depicted in the narrative. This edition serves as both a literary classic and a significant commentary on Victorian society, inviting readers to reflect on the interplay between utilitarianism and human compassion.
Official synopsis Publisher
Introduction and Notes by Dinny Thorold, University of Westminster.
Illustrated by F. Walker and Maurice Greiffenhagen.
Unusually for Dickens, Hard Times is set, not in London, but in the imaginary mid-Victorian Northern industrial town of Coketown with its blackened factories, downtrodden workers and polluted environment. This is the soulless domain of the strict utilitarian Thomas Gradgrind and the heartless factory owner Josiah Bounderby.
However human joy is not excluded thanks to ‘Mr Sleary’s Horse-Riding’ circus, a gin-soaked and hilarious troupe of open-hearted and affectionate people who act as an antidote to all the drudgery and misery endured by the ordinary citizens of Coketown.
Macaulay attacked Hard Times for its ‘sullen socialism’, but 20th-century critics such as George Bernard Shaw and F.R. Leavis have praised this book in the highest terms, while readers the world over have found inspiration and enjoyment from what is both Dickens’ shortest completed novel and also one of his important statements on Victorian society.
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