Hard Times

Hard Times was first published in 1854 and is Charles Dickens' shortest novel. Charles Dickens set the scene for Hard Times in an imaginary mid Victorian Northern industrial town named Coketown where dark and dreary factories line the streets and where hard workers spend their long days.

Coketown is dominated by the figure of Mr. Thomas Gradgrind, school owner and model of Utilitarian success. He strictly lives by the rules of 'facts and figures' and leaves no room for the imagination or wo...