Hard Times
Assigned by 1 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- 1854
- Form
- Novel
- Language
- English
- Length
- Medium · 300 pp120 to 300 pages
- Difficulty
- Moderate2 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendHard TimesPenguin Classics, 2003Kate Flint's edition; the shortest Dickens novel, with useful notes on the industrial background.
These links go straight to Amazon and Bookshop.org and earn this site nothing today. Prices are the same either way. How this works.
In the mill town of Coketown, Thomas Gradgrind raises his children on facts alone and forbids imagination. His daughter Louisa is married off to the blustering manufacturer Bounderby and nearly seduced by an idle gentleman; his son Tom robs the bank and lets the honest weaver Stephen Blackpool take the blame. The circus people Gradgrind despised are the ones who save his son. The novel is Dickens's attack on utilitarian education and the factory system.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns Hard Times are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.
