Present Appertaining To Books Hard Times

Title	:	Hard Times
Author	:	Charles Dickens
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	Deluxe Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 353 pages
Published	:	October 19th 2003 by Pearson Longman (first published 1854)
Categories	:	Classics. Fiction. Literature. 19th Century

Hard Times Paperback | Pages: 353 pages

Relation Conducive To Books Hard Times

"My satire is against those who see figures and averages, and nothing else," proclaimed Charles Dickens in explaining the theme of this classic novel. Published in 1854, the story concerns one Thomas Gradgrind, a "fanatic of the demonstrable fact," who raises his children, Tom and Louisa, in a stifling and arid atmosphere of grim practicality.

Without a moral compass to guide them, the children sink into lives of desperation and despair, played out against the grim background of Coketown, a wretched community shadowed by an industrial behemoth. Louisa falls into a loveless marriage with Josiah Bouderby, a vulgar banker, while the unscrupulous Tom, totally lacking in principle, becomes a thief who frames an innocent man for his crime. Witnessing the degradation and downfall of his children, Gradgrind realizes that his own misguided principles have ruined their lives.

Considered Dickens' harshest indictment of mid-19th-century industrial practices and their dehumanizing effects, this novel offers a fascinating tapestry of Victorian life, filled with the richness of detail, brilliant characterization, and passionate social concern that typify the novelist's finest creations.

Of Dickens' work, the eminent Victorian critic John Ruskin had this to say: "He is entirely right in his main drift and purpose in every book he has written; and all of them, but especially Hard Times, should be studied with close and earnest care by persons interested in social questions."

Identify Books In Pursuance Of Hard Times

Original Title:	Hard Times: For These Times
ISBN:	0321107217 (ISBN13: 9780321107213)
Edition Language:	English
Characters:	Thomas Gradgrind, Mr. M'Choakumchild, Stephen Blackpool, Josiah Bounderby, Sissy Jupe
Setting:	Coketown(United Kingdom)

Rating Appertaining To Books Hard Times

Ratings: 3.52 From 51455 Users | 2795 Reviews

Critique Appertaining To Books Hard Times

The novel depends on the opposition between fact, Dickens's name for the cold and loveless attitude to the life he associated with Utilitarianism, and fancy, which represents all the warmth of the imagination. A contrast which gives it both tension and unity.

This book is, for me, Dickens' best. I loved every second of it, the darkness of Tom's steady descent into drinking and gambling were brilliant and there were several times I found myself simply rereading a few paragraphs over and over, in awe at them. (The end of Chapter XIX, The Whelp, is something I hold in very high regard as possibly one of his best pieces of writing ever.) I want to deal with the characters individually from here, since I feel they are all very important.Mr Gradgrind -

At the outset of this novel, we know that Dickens is going to pit reason against emotion, fact against feeling, and that reason and fact are going to come up short. In a world without sympathy, compassion or warmth, Louisa and Tom Gradgrind are raised. They have everything they might want in terms of money and position, but nothing else; their contrast is Sissy Jupe, a circus child who has the love of both her father and the circus family, but is steeped in poverty. In true Dickens style, there

Hard Times: For These TimesPenguin edition with intro & notes by Kate FlintBeyond the Brontes, there aren't many classic novels set in the North of England, and for years I'd been kind-of-meaning to read a few more, especially about workers and heavy industry, Mary Barton, Sons & Lovers, and Hard Times. (As per comment below, North and South was off the table because I'd already seen the TV series and didn't love the plot, and it's also the story of a middle-class southerner moving

I taught this novel many times--oh, a dozen--because it's the shortest Dickens, fits into a college course easier than Nicholas Nickleby, my favorite, which I only taught once. Likewise with War and Peace only once because it took mostly the whole semester. Hard Times is excellent on education, only Nicholas surpassing it--and perhaps Tom Sawyer, on American and Church education. Gradgrind, the businessman who sets the tone of M'Choakumchild's school, disapproves of his daughter Louisa's

Not Dicken's best work, but still, ya know, Dickens. It's pretty much "Lets light some straw men on fire!" day in Dickens land. Presumably Hard Times was chosen as the title because "Let's Kick Some Deserving Fuckers In The Teeth" was already taken. Still I don't know anyone I'd rather watch burn people and deliver teeth kicks then Dickens.

They say no-one reads a book to get to the middle. Well, for Hard Times, perhaps they should, so disappointing the end turns out to be, this is one of the examples of how literature has improved over the years. Having read Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol and A Tale of Two Cities and enjoying them all immensely I tried Hard Times, having read here and elsewhere that the book represented Dickens at his best. It does not, and to say that it does devalues his other work. The book is filled with