Based on the 1854 book-publication of Hard Times, the text has been altered only for consistency with contemporary British spelling and punctuation. Right-hand page headings give dates of appearance for the twenty installments in Household Words, Dickens's periodical in which the novel was originally serialized. Division into three books was not made in Household Words, where chapters ran consecutively from I to XXXVII,without their present headings.
The footnotes in the text are the editor's.
Written deliberately to increase the circulation of Dickens's weekly magazine, Household Words, Hard Times was a huge and instantaneous success upon publication in 1854. Yet this novel is not the cheerful celebration of Victorian life one might have expected from the beloved author of The Pickwick Papers and The Old Curiosity Shop. Compressed, stark, allegorical, it is a bitter expose of capitalist exploitation during the industrial revolution-and a fierce denunciation of the philosophy of materialism, which threatens the human imagination in all times and places. With a typically unforgettable cast of characters-includin~ the heartless fact-worshipper Mr. Gradgrind, the warmly endearing Sissy Jupe, and the eternally noble Stephen BlackpooI-Hard times carries a uniquely powerful message and remains one of the most widely read of Dickens's major novels.
BOOK THE FIRST. SOWING
I The One Thing Needful
II Murdering the Innocents
IIIA Loophole
IV Mr. Bounderby
V The Keynote
VI Sleary's Horsemanship
VII Mrs. Sparsit
VIII Never Wonder
IX Sissy's Progress
X Stephen Blackpool
XI No Way Out
XII The Old Woman
XIII Rachael
XIV The Great Manufacturer
XV Father and Daughter
XVI Husband and Wife
BOOK THE SECOND. REAPING
I Effects in the Bank
II Mr. James Harthouse
III The Whelp
IV Men and Brothers
V Men and Masters
VI Fading Away
VII Gunpowder
VIII Explosion ...
IX Hearing the Last of It
X Mrs. Sparsit's Staircase..
XI Lower and Lower
XII Down
BOOK THE THIRD. GARNERING
I Another Thing Needful
II Very Ridiculous
III Very Decided
IV Lost
V Found
VI The Starlight
VII Whelp-hunting
VIII Philosophical
IX Final