Hard Times
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| Hard Times (1854) by |
| Hard Times is a novel by Charles Dickens, published in 1854. It is significant for being the shortest of his full novels. The book is one of a number of state-of-the-nation novels published around the same time, another being North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, which aimed to highlight the social and economic pressures some people were under. The novel is unusual, in that it is not set in London, as is Dickens' usual wont, but the fictitious Victorian industrial town of Coketown. It has met mixed critical response from a diverse range of critics, such F. R. Leavis, George Bernard Shaw, and Thomas Macaulay. This was usual for Dickens' treatment of trade unions, and the pessimism about the division between capitalistic millowners and the undervalued workers, after the Industrial Revolution, set in the Victorian era of Britain.— Excerpted from Hard Times on Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. |
Table of Contents
Book the First: Sowing |
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| I. | The One Thing Needful |
| II. | Murdering the Innocents |
| III. | A Loophole |
| IV. | Mr. Bounderby |
| V. | The Keynote |
| VI. | Sleary's Horsemanship |
| VII. | Mrs. Sparsit |
| VIII. | Never Wonder |
| IX. | Sissy's Progress |
| X. | Stephen Blackpool |
| XI. | No Way Out |
| XII. | The Old Woman |
| XIII. | Rachael |
| XIV. | The Great Manufacturer |
| XV. | Father and Daughter |
| XVI. | Husband and Wife |
Book the Second: Reaping |
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| I. | Effects in the Bank |
| II. | Mr. James Harthouse |
| III. | The Whelp |
| IV. | Men and Brothers |
| V. | Men and Masters |
| VI. | Fading Away |
| VII. | Gunpowder |
| VIII. | Explosion |
| IX. | Hearing the Last of It |
| X. | Mrs. Sparsit's Staircase |
| XI. | Lower and Lower |
| XII. | Down |
Book the Third: Garnering |
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| I. | Another Thing Needful |
| II. | Very Ridiculous |
| III. | Very Decided |
| IV. | Lost |
| V. | Found |
| VI. | The Starlight |
| VII. | Whelp-Hunting |
| VIII. | Philosophical |
| IX. | Final |
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This work published before January 1, 1923 is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago. |
