Hard Times [Christmas Summary Classics]

by Charles Dickens

Overview

Hard Times
"Hard Times" is not one of the longest, but it is one of the most powerful of Dickens's works. John Ruskin went so far as to call it "in several respects the greatest" book Dickens had written. It is, of course, a fierce attack on the early Victorian school of political economists. The Bounderbys and Gradgrinds are typical of certain characters, and, though they change their form of speech, are still recognisable to-day. As a study of social and industrial life in England in the manufacturing districts fifty years ago, "Hard Times" will always be valuable, though allowance must be made here as elsewhere for the novelist's tendency to exaggeration--exaggeration of virtue no less than of vice or weakness. In Josiah Bounderby and Stephen Blackpool this characteristic is pronounced. The first, according to John Ruskin, being a dramatic monster, and the second a dramatic perfection. The story first appeared serially in "Household Words" between April 1 and August 12, 1854.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940149374359
Publisher:	Kartindo Publishing House
Publication date:	04/17/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	15 KB

About the Author

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) is probably the greatest novelist England has ever produced, the author of such famous books as A Christmas Carol, Hard Times, Great Expectations, David Copperfield, and Oliver Twist. His innate comic genius and shrewd depictions of Victorian life — along with his indelible characters — have made his books beloved by readers the world over. Dickens was born in Landport, Portsea, England and died in Kent after suffering a stroke. The second of eight children of a family continually plagued by debt, the young Dickens came to know hunger, privation, and the horrors of the infamous debtors' prison and the evils of child labor. These unfortunate early life experiences helped shape many of his greatest works.

Date of Birth:

February 7, 1812

Date of Death:

June 18, 1870

Place of Birth:

Portsmouth, England

Place of Death:

Gad's Hill, Kent, England

Education:

Home-schooling; attended Dame School at Chatham briefly and Wellington