Hard Times

Written deliberately to increase the circulation of Dickens's weekly magazine,Household Words, Hard Timeswas a huge and instantaneous success upon publication in 1854. Yet this novel is not the cheerful celebration of Victorian life one might have expected from the beloved author ofThe Pickwick PapersandThe Old Curiosity Shop. Compressed, stark, allegorical, it is a bitter expose of capitalist exploitation during the industrial revolutionand a fierce denunciation of the philosophy of materialism, which threatens the human imagination in all times and places. With a typically unforgettable cast of charactersincluding the heartless fact-worshipper Mr. Gradgrind, the warmly endearing Sissy Jupe, and the eternally noble Stephen BlackpoolHard Timescarries a uniquely powerful message and remains one of the most widely read of Dickens's major novels.

Charles Dickens was born in a little house in Landport, Portsea, England, on February 7th, 1812. At the age of eleven, Dickens was taken out of school and sent to work in a London blacking warehouse, where his job was to paste labels on bottles for six shillings a week. When the family fortunes improved, Charles went back to school, after which he became an office boy, a freelance reporter, and finally an author. With<i> Pickwick Papers</i> (1836-7) he achieved immediate fame; in a few years he was easily the most popular and respected writer of his time. It has been estimated that one out of every ten persons in Victorian England was a Dickens reader. <i>Oliver Twist</i> (1837), <i>Nicholas Nickelby</i> (1838-9), and <i>The Old Curiosity Shop</i> (1840-41) were huge successes. <i>Martin Chuzzlewit</i> (1843-4) was less so, but Dickens followed it with his unforgettable <i>A Christmas Carol</i> (1843). <i>Bleak House</i> (1852-3), <i>Hard Times</i> (1854), and <i>Little Dorrit</i> (1855-7) reveal his deepening concern for the injustices of British society. <i>A Tale of Two Cities </i>(1859), <i>Great Expectations </i>(1860-61) and <i>Our Mutual Friend</i> (1864-5) complete his major works.