Hard TimesDickens’s scathing portrait of Victorian industrial society. Coketown, the depressed mill town that is the setting for one of Charles Dickens’s most powerful and unforgettable novels, is all brick, machinery, and smoke-darkened chimneys. Its emblematic citizen, the schoolmaster Thomas Gradgrind, lives to impose his version of education: facts and statistics that feed the mind while starving the soul and spirit. Inflexible and unyielding, he places conformity above curiosity and logic over sentiment, only to see his philosophy warp and destroy the lives of his own family. Filled with memorable characters and scenes, Hard Times is a daring novel of ideas—and, ultimately, a celebration of love, hope, and imagination. With an Introduction by Frederick Busch and an Afterword by Jane Smiley |
Contents
Introduction | vii |
List of Characters | 5 |
Sowing | 7 |
The One Thing Needful | 9 |
Murdering the Innocents | 10 |
A Loophole | 16 |
Mr Bounderby | 21 |
The Keynote | 28 |
Men and Brothers | 143 |
Men and Masters | 151 |
Fading Away | 158 |
Gunpowder | 170 |
Explosion | 183 |
Hearing the Last of It | 195 |
Mrs Sparsits Staircase | 204 |
Lower and Lower | 208 |
Slearys Horsemanship | 34 |
Mrs Sparsit | 48 |
Never Wonder | 55 |
Sissys Progress | 61 |
Stephen Blackpool | 69 |
No Way Out | 74 |
The Old Woman | 82 |
Rachel | 87 |
The Great Manufacturer | 95 |
Father and Daughter | 100 |
Husband and Wife | 108 |
Reaping | 115 |
Effects in the Bank | 117 |
Mr James Harthouse | 130 |
The Whelp | 138 |
Down | 217 |
Garnering | 223 |
Another Thing Needful | 225 |
Very Ridiculous | 231 |
Very Decided | 240 |
Lost | 249 |
Found | 258 |
The Starlight | 267 |
Whelphunting | 277 |
Philosophical | 288 |
Final | 295 |
Afterword | 301 |
Selected Bibliography | 311 |
A Note on the Text | |
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Common terms and phrases
agen asked Bank better Bitzer Bleak House Bound Bounderby of Coketown Bounderby's brother Charles Dickens Childers considered coom cried curtsey dark daughter dear Dickens Dombey and Son door erby eyes F. R. Leavis face fact Father fellow gentleman girl gone Grad hand hard head hear heard heart honour hope horse James Harthouse Jane Smiley Josiah Bounderby Jupe knew lady Little Dorrit live looked Louisa ma'am manner married McChoakumchild mind mother muddle never nine oils novel old Bounderby old woman Pegler poor Rachael returned round seemed seen Sissy sister Slackbridge Sleary Sleary's Sparsit Stephen Blackpool Stone Lodge stood stopped street sure tell thee there's thing Thomas Gradgrind thou thought Thquire tion Tom Gradgrind took town turned voice walked wath whelp WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE word young