Hard Times: For These Times: xli (Penguin Classics)

by Charles Dickens (Author), Charles Dickens (Author), Charles Dickens (Author), Charles Dickens (Author), Kate Flint (Introduction)

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $3.40

  A damning indictment of Utilitarianism and the dehumanising influence of the Industrial Revolution, Charles Dickens's Hard Times is edited with an introduction and notes by Kate Flint in Penguin Classics . In Hard Times , the Northern mill-town of Coketown is dominated by the figure of Mr Thomas Gradgrind, school headmaster and model of Utilitarian success. Feeding both his pupils and family with facts, he bans fancy and wonder from any young minds. As a consequence his obedient daughter Louisa marries the loveless businessman and 'bully of humanity' Mr Bounderby, and his son Tom rebels to become embroiled in gambling and robbery. And, as their fortunes cross with those of free-spirited circus girl Sissy Jupe and victimized weaver Stephen Blackpool, Gradgrind is eventually forced to recognize the value of the human heart in an age of materialism and machinery. This edition of Hard Times is based on the text of the first volume publication of 1854. Kate Flint's introduction sheds light on the frequently overlooked character interplay in Dickens's great critique of Victorian industrial society. Charles Dickens is one of the best-loved novelists in the English language, whose 200th anniversary was celebrated in 2012. His most famous books, including Oliver Twist , Great Expectations , A Tale of Two Cities , David Copperfield and The Pickwick Papers , have been adapted for stage and screen and read by millions. If you enjoyed Hard Times , you might like Dickens' Bleak House , also available in Penguin Classics . A masterpiece...a completely serious work of art . (F.R. Leavis).

• Used

  Paperback
  1994

  $3.25

• Used

  Hardcover
  1977

  $5.29

• New

  Paperback
  1995

  $6.72

  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.