Hard Times (1854) is Charles Dickens's shortest novel. In the industrial town of Coketown, the schoolmaster Thomas Gradgrind raises his children on facts alone, with disastrous results, while the factory hands live joyless lives.
The story
Gradgrind's daughter Louisa, taught never to wonder, marries the boastful mill-owner Bounderby, thirty years older. Her brother Tom becomes a thief, and the honest weaver Stephen Blackpool is wrongly accused.
Sissy Jupe, a circus girl taken in by Gradgrind, shows the value of imagination and kindness, and helps the family recover.
Facts and fancy
Dickens attacks utilitarian thinking, which reduced people to statistics, and the education system built on it.
Against it he sets the circus of Mr Sleary, a world of play and feeling that the novel defends.
Coketown
Coketown, a town of red brick and black smoke, is partly based on Preston, which Dickens visited during a long strike in 1854.
The novel was serialised weekly in Household Words from April to August 1854, to boost the magazine's sales.
Anecdotes
Dedicated to Carlyle
Dickens dedicated Hard Times to Thomas Carlyle, whose criticism of industrial society had influenced him.
A short novel
Written for weekly instalments, Hard Times is about a third of the length of most Dickens novels, which he found constraining.
Frequently asked questions
What is Coketown?
The fictional industrial town where Hard Times is set, partly based on Preston.
Who is Thomas Gradgrind?
A schoolmaster and father who believes only in facts.
To whom is Hard Times dedicated?
To Thomas Carlyle.