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Learn about the plot, characters, themes, and context of Hard Times, a novel by Charles Dickens that critiques the Industrial Revolution and utilitarianism. Find study tools, test prep, and full text of the novel on SparkNotes.
Hard Times: For These Times (commonly known as Hard Times) is the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The book surveys English society and satirises the social and economic conditions of the era. Hard Times is unusual in several ways. It is by far the shortest of Dickens's novels, barely a quarter of the length of those ...
- Charles Dickens
- Serialised April 1854 – 12 August 1854; book format 1854
- 1854
- Novel
Hard Times Summary. The novel begins with Mr. Thomas Gradgrind sternly lecturing a room full of school children on the importance of facts. He believes that facts, and not imagination or emotion, are the key to a good education, and he educates all the children of the school and his own children, Louisa and Tom, according to this philosophy.
Article History. Hard Times, novel by Charles Dickens, published in serial form (as Hard Times: For These Times) in the periodical Household Words from April to August 1854 and in book form later the same year. The novel is a bitter indictment of industrialization, with its dehumanizing effects on workers and communities in mid-19th-century ...
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Hard Times Full Book Summary. Thomas Gradgrind, a wealthy, retired merchant in the industrial city of Coketown, England, devotes his life to a philosophy of rationalism, self-interest, and fact. He raises his oldest children, Louisa and Tom, according to this philosophy and never allows them to engage in fanciful or imaginative pursuits.
- Charles Dickens
- 1854
’Tis better not to walk too much together. ’Times, yes! ’Twould be hard, indeed, if ’twas not to be at all,’ she said, with a cheerfulness she sought to communicate to him. ‘’Tis hard, anyways, Rachael.’ ‘Try to think not; and ’twill seem better.’ ‘I’ve tried a long time, and ’ta’nt got better.
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March 10, 2024. Hard Times is the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The book surveys English society and satirizes the social and economic conditions of the era. The story is set in the fictitious Victorian industrial Coketown, a generic Northern English mill-town.
