"HARD TIMES(Charles Dickens)"(Witet Oscar Wilde):The Wordsworth Classics covers a huge list of beloved works of literature in English and translations. This growing series is rigorously updated, with scholarly introductions and notes added to new titles.
Unusually t'or Dickens, lIctrd Times is set, not in London, but inthe imaginary mid-Vietorim Northern industrial town ofCoketown with its blackened factories, downtrodden workers andpolluted environment. This is the soulless domain of the strictutilitarian Thomas Gradgrind and the heartless factory ownerJosiah Bounderby. Ilowever, hullllnl ioy is not excluded thanks toMr Sleary's Ilorse-Riding' circus, a gin-soaked and hilarioustroupe of open-hearted and affectionate people who act as anantidote to all the drudgery and misery endured hv the ordinarycitizens of Coketown.
Macaulay attacked Hard Times for its 'sullen socialism', hut20th-eenturv critics such as George Bernard Shaw and F.R.Leavis have praised this hook in the highest terms, while readersthe world over have found inspiration and enjoyment from whatis hoth Dickens' shortest completed novel and also one of hisimportant statements on Victorian soeiety.
INTRODUCTION
BOOK THE FIRST -- SOWING
I The One TbingNeedful
II Murdering the Innocents
III zzt Loophole
IV Mr Bounderby
V The Key-Note
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
XlII Rachad
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 Gunpowdo"
VIII Fxplosion
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 Voy Ridiculous
III Very Decided
IV Lost
V Found
VI The Starlight
VII Whelp-Hunting
VIII Philosophical
IX Final