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hard times by charles dickens Kindle Edition

by charles dickens (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 7-12-Dickens' satire on the Victorian family and the philosophies of a society which sought to turn men into machines.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From the Author

Simplified English makes Dickens accessible for all children
Engaging illustrations bring the stories to life
A great way to introduce classic literature to younger readers
Leveled for classroom use, including GRLs

--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Review

“A masterpiece . . . a completely serious work of art.”
– F.R. Leavis

From the Trade Paperback edition. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Review

"Graham Law's edition of Hard Times is the most useful edition for teaching Dickens that I have seen. Its text is authoritative, and the range of contextual documents included gives readers an opportunity to situate the work in the discussions of industrialization and labor as they took place in nineteenth-century England." (Barry V. Qualls )

"This beautifully produced edition combines a freshly written, informative introduction with helpful and well-judged notes. Particularly welcome is the wealth of documentary material and examples carefully chosen from other contemporary fiction, enabling readers to place Hard Times within its full Victorian context. This is an excellent edition—clear, authoritative and stimulating." (Kate Flint ) --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Book Description

'Now what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life....' So says Thomas Gradgrind in Dickens' immortal story set in the North of England in the 19th century. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

About the Author

Charles Dickens (1812-70) was one of the leading novelists in the Victoria era, and in the entire history of English literature. He is famed for his humorous characters and dark, urban, social detail. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Book Description

Cambridge Literature is a series of literary texts edited for study by students aged 14-18 in English-speaking classrooms. It will include novels, poetry, short stories, essays, travel-writing and other non-fiction. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From the Publisher

Founded in 1906 by J.M. Dent, the Everyman Library has always tried to make the best books ever written available to the greatest number of people at the lowest possible price. Unique editorial features that help Everyman Paperback Classics stand out from the crowd include: a leading scholar or literary critic's introduction to the text, a biography of the author, a chronology of her or his life and times, a historical selection of criticism, and a concise plot summary. All books published since 1993 have also been completely restyled: all type has been reset, to offer a clarity and ease of reading unique among editions of the classics; a vibrant, full-color cover design now complements these great texts with beautiful contemporary works of art. But the best feature must be Everyman's uniquely low price. Each Everyman title offers these extensive materials at a price that competes with the most inexpensive editions on the market-but Everyman Paperbacks have durable binding, quality paper, and the highest editorial and scholarly standards. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From the Inside Flap

In the polluted and poverty-ridden Coketown, Louisa and Tom Gradgrind endure a cold and loveless childhood at the hands of their self-satisfied and unimaginative father Thomas.

Louisa, starved of affection, is forced into a miserable marriage with self-made industrialist Josiah Bounderby. Tom descends to a secret life of theft. But for some, even among the squalor there is the hope of redemption and eventful happiness.

Dicken's brilliant and moving satire on the Victorian family and the philosophies of a society which sought to turn men into machines was written at the height of both his popularity and creative powers. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From the Back Cover

Hard Times appeared in weekly parts in Household Words in 1854, printed on the pages usually occupied by leading articles on the major social issues of the day. In the overlapping worlds of Gradgrind's schoolroom, Bounderby the humbug industrialist and Sissy Jupe of Sleary's Circus, Dickens joyfully satirizes Utilitarianism, the self-help doctrines of Samuel Smiles and the mechanization of the mid-Victorian soul. Although it is often called Dickens's 'industrial novel', as Kate Flint argues in her new Introduction Hard Times defies easy categorization. It is a novel deeply preoccupied with childhood and family life, bursting with unresolvable tensions and contradictions and wonderfully entertaining in its metaphorical wit and invention. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From AudioFile

[Editor's note: The following is a combined review with OLIVER TWIST.]--"Cliffs Notes"meets "Masterpiece Theater." If you like turgid nineteenth-century melodrama, you'll certainly enjoy these tapes, for they are slick, professionally--albeit unimaginatively--acted, and meticulously produced in the BBC's house style. Warning: Do not listen to these dramatizations expecting to find Dickens. Adapter/Director Nigel Bryant has excised everything that lifts the master's works high above conventional scenery chewing. For blood and thunder, these plays will do fine; for more satisfying Dickens on tape, we recommend the readings of Martin Jarvis and Miriam Margolyes. Y.R. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER I
The One Thing Needful

“Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, Sir!”

The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a schoolroom, and the speaker’s square forefinger emphasized his observations by underscoring every sentence with a line on the schoolmaster’s sleeve. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s square wall of a forehead, which had his eyebrows for its base, while his eyes found commodious cellerage in two dark caves, overshadowed by the wall. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s voice, which was inflexible, dry, and dictatorial. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s hair, which bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of firs to keep the wind from its shining surface, all covered with knobs, like the crust of a plum pie, as if the head had scarcely warehouse-room for the hard facts stored inside. The speaker’s obstinate carriage, square coat, square legs, square shoulders,—nay, his very neckcloth, trained to take him by the throat with an unaccommodating grasp, like a stubborn fact, as it was,—all helped the emphasis.

“In this life, we want nothing but Facts, Sir; nothing but Facts!”

The speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the third grown person present, all backed a little, and swept with their eyes the inclined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in order, ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the brim.

CHAPTER II
Murdering the Innocents

Thomas Gradgrind, Sir. A man of realities. A man of facts and calculations. A man who proceeds upon the principle that two and two are four, and nothing over, and who is not to be talked into allowing for anything over. Thomas Gradgrind, Sir—peremptorily Thomas—Thomas Gradgrind. With a rule and a pair of scales, and the multiplication table always in his pocket, Sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature, and tell you exactly what it comes to. It is a mere question of figures, a case of simple arithmetic. You might hope to get some other nonsensical belief into the head of George Gradgrind, or Augustus Gradgrind, or John Gradgrind, or Joseph Gradgrind (all supposititious, non-existent persons), but into the head of Thomas Gradgrind—no, Sir!

In such terms Mr. Gradgrind always mentally introduced himself, whether to his private circle of acquaintance, or to the public in general. In such terms, no doubt, substituting the words “boys and girls,” for “Sir,” Thomas Gradgrind now presented Thomas Gradgrind to the little pitchers before him, who were to be filled so full of facts.

Indeed, as he eagerly sparkled at them from the cellarage before mentioned, he seemed a kind of cannon loaded to the muzzle with facts, and prepared to blow them clean out of the regions of childhood at one discharge. He seemed a galvanizing apparatus, too, charged with a grim mechanical substitute for the tender young imaginations that were to be stormed away.

“Girl number twenty,” said Mr. Gradgrind, squarely pointing with his square forefinger, “I don’t know that girl. Who is that girl?”

“Sissy Jupe, sir,” explained number twenty, blushing, standing up, and curtseying.

“Sissy is not a name,” said Mr. Gradgrind. “Don’t call yourself Sissy. Call yourself Cecilia.”

“It’s father as calls me Sissy, sir,” returned the young girl in a trembling voice, and with another curtsey.

“Then he has no business to do it,” said Mr. Gradgrind. “Tell him he mustn’t. Cecilia Jupe. Let me see. What is your father?”

“He belongs to the horse-riding, if you please, sir.”

Mr. Gradgrind frowned, and waved off the objectionable calling with his hand.

“We don’t want to know anything about that, here. You mustn’t tell us about that, here. Your father breaks horses, don’t he?”

“If you please, sir, when they can get any to break, they do break horses in the ring, sir.”

“You mustn’t tell us about the ring, here. Very well, then. Describe your father as a horsebreaker. He doctors sick horses, I dare say?”

“Oh yes, sir.”

“Very well, then. He is a veterinary surgeon, a farrier and horsebreaker. Give me your definition of a horse.”

(Sissy Jupe thrown into the greatest alarm by this demand.)

“Girl number twenty unable to define a horse!” said Mr. Gradgrind, for the general behoof of all the little pitchers. “Girl number twenty possessed of no facts, in reference to one of the commonest of animals! Some boy’s definition of a horse. Bitzer, yours.”

The square finger, moving here and there, lighted suddenly on Bitzer, perhaps because he chanced to sit in the same ray of sunlight which, darting in at one of the bare windows of the intensely whitewashed room, irradiated Sissy. For, the boys and girls sat on the face of the inclined plane in two compact bodies, divided up the centre by a narrow interval; and Sissy, being at the corner of a row on the sunny side, came in for the beginning of a sunbeam, of which Bitzer, being at the corner of a row on the other side, a few rows in advance, caught the end. But, whereas the girl was so dark-eyed and dark-haired, that she seemed to receive a deeper and more lustrous colour from the sun, when it shone upon her, the boy was so light-eyed and light-haired that the self-same rays appeared to draw out of him what little colour he ever possessed. His cold eyes would hardly have been eyes, but for the short ends of lashes which, by bringing them into immediate contrast with something paler than themselves, expressed their form. His short-cropped hair might have been a mere continuation of the sandy freckles on his forehead and face. His skin was so unwholesomely deficient in the natural tinge, that he looked as though, if he were cut, he would bleed white.

“Bitzer,” said Thomas Gradgrind. “Your definition of a horse.”

“Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth.” Thus (and much more) Bitzer.

“Now girl number twenty,” said Mr. Gradgrind. “You know what a horse is.”

She curtseyed again, and would have blushed deeper, if she could have blushed deeper than she had blushed all this time. Bitzer, after rapidly blinking at Thomas Gradgrind with both eyes at once, and so catching the light upon his quivering ends of lashes that they looked like the antennæ of busy insects, put his knuckles to his freckled forehead, and sat down again.

The third gentleman now stepped forth. A mighty man at cutting and drying, he was; a government officer; in his way (and in most other people’s too), a professed pugilist; always in training, always with a system to force down the general throat like a bolus, always to be heard of at the bar of his little Public-office, ready to fight all England. To continue in fistic phraseology, he had a genius for coming up to the scratch,2 wherever and whatever it was, and proving himself an ugly customer. He would go in and damage any subject whatever with his right, follow up with his left, stop, exchange, counter, bore his opponent (he always fought All England)3 to the ropes, and fall upon him neatly. He was certain to knock the wind out of common sense, and render that unlucky adversary deaf to the call of time. And he had it in charge from high authority to bring about the great public- office Millennium, when Commissioners should reign upon earth.

“Very well,” said this gentleman, briskly smiling, and folding his arms. “That’s a horse. Now, let me ask you girls and boys, Would you paper a room with representations of horses?”

After a pause, one half of the children cried in chorus, “Yes, Sir!” Upon which the other half, seeing in the gentleman’s face that Yes was wrong, cried out in chorus, “No, Sir!”—as the custom is, in these examinations.

“Of course, No. Why wouldn’t you?”

A pause. One corpulent slow boy, with a wheezy manner of breathing, ventured the answer, Because he wouldn’t paper a room at all, but would paint it.

“You must paper it,” said the gentleman, rather warmly.

“You must paper it,” said Thomas Gradgrind, “whether you like it or not. Don’t tell us you wouldn’t paper it. What do you mean, boy?”

From the Trade Paperback edition. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0BTQ4ZBP2
Publisher ‏ : ‎ classics (February 1, 2023)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 1, 2023
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 397 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 119 pages

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Charles Dickens
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Charles Dickens was born in 1812 near Portsmouth where his father was a clerk in the navy pay office. The family moved to London in 1823, but their fortunes were severely impaired. Dickens was sent to work in a blacking-warehouse when his father was imprisoned for debt. Both experiences deeply affected the future novelist. In 1833 he began contributing stories to newspapers and magazines, and in 1836 started the serial publication of Pickwick Papers. Thereafter, Dickens published his major novels over the course of the next twenty years, from Nicholas Nickleby to Little Dorrit. He also edited the journals Household Words and All the Year Round. Dickens died in June 1870.
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Gage McWeeny
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Gage McWeeny is Associate Professor of English at Williams College. His writing interests range from the rise of non-lethal weapons, published in the journal Cabinet, to the relationship between literature and sociology.
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Reinold F.

How it cannot be real but a fiction? Amazing! (AmazonClassics edition)

Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2019

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Iron machines, dull, polluting and monotonous; under their tyranny the will, desires, and ambitions of humanity has been replaced by manufactured objects, statistics and industrial shapes and colors. But nature pushes through this cold society, and that conflict fuels this story.

Being not a fan of realism (much realism in my life already xP) I read Dickens just because I love the 19th century literature from the UK. He hooked me up just since the first paragraph. His description of the characters is life-like. It was so realist that I got a shock when I knew afterwards that the city is not a real place. It is not only that everything is "showed," is also that you can "listen" sounds, "step" into grounds of different textures, feel the hair of Louisa over the bare chest of his brother. For moments Dickens is quite poetic, as in that moment in which Louisa listens a bell in middle of the quite night, it is described in such a way that it would be a disservice to tell you how. In other part a character, jealousy and desperate, is prying and Dickens masterly blends her feelings with the rain (!) It is awe-inspiring the richness of details of that century. The characters have such intensity not only despite being dehumanized by the machines, but because precisely that: they are about to have a neurosis for crushing their nature. There is not much humor but there are characters that end being humorous, there are twists, revelations, it was quite entertaining to read and sure I'd love to read more Dickens' stories.

There is social critic in this book, but Dickens never forgets that he is doing literature; something that Mark Twain tend to forget. Almost nobody is black and white but they tend to be complex. The more power the persons have the more tempted they are to neglect they are treating with human beings, being either the businessmen, the educators, the aristocracy and, even, the union of workers. If there is a religion it seems to be the iron machine. The only exception in character development seems to be a worker, Blackpool, whose participation in the novel tended to be a bit in the pathetic side, in an exaggerated way. I still don't like realism but sure I'd like to read more about Dickens.

About the AmazonClassics edition I think it is a very recommendable edition. I didn't detect mistakes, the typography and formatting are visually clean and modern, and the X-Ray as always is useful.

11 people found this helpful

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Christopher

Great story

Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2021

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This was hard for me to read at first. The style, some of the word usage, especially the written accents were difficult for me. After a while, you get the flow a little better and it is easier to pick up the pace without feeling lost. It’s a great story you can almost guess the outcomes, but still keeps you interested and coming back for more until it’s done.

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Diana S. Long

Classic Dickens

Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2018

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This novel was a challenge to me albeit a shorter story than most, not so much the content but with his very creative colorful characters he also incorporated one with a lisp, that couldn't pronounce his “s” and another that spoke in a very “cockney” accent. In able to understand the content I needed to slow down and read the passages aloud. Very clever and somewhat playful Mr. Dickens. As with his other novels he wrote about the down trodden, misunderstood and serious difficulties of the lower members of society. The story takes place in Coletown, a dreary place to be sure with all the smoke from factories polluting the environment. There is not one or singular protagonist in the story, many have a story to tell. A child abandoned by her father who is a circus performer and has lost his touch and wants a better life for her. An educator who believes all children should learn only facts and nothing but facts so even his own children don't know how to deal with society or relationships in general. A bank and mill owner who lives a lie. A poor mill worker, stuck with an alcoholic wife. Dickens even has added one of those ladies who is in everyone's business and a libertine. Very entertaining even though melancholy at times I highly recommend.

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Susan Goldin

No better times than Dicken's Hard Times

Reviewed in the United States on August 26, 2015

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Hard Times is a story of our times as well as those as Mr. Dickens'. The characters and situations may be dressed in period garb, but their thoughts and actions are timeless. In a period when so many were downtrodden and society severely crippled with the "haves" and the "have nots" ... when compassion was underestimated and governments of self interest the norm.... Dickens writes a tale devoted to finding truth within truth, heart within those predisposed to see heartlessness a virtue, and understanding slow to grow within hearts and minds so poorly exercised. His portrait might be one of our current century and circumstances with slight changes in locale, transport, and occupation. Those duped are still duped today, government stooges still rule a scene of inequities and hold fast the status quo, those of power based on tremendous wealth still pontificate while pulling the strings of political hacks ( some even ARE THE POLITICAL HACKS), --- and the righting of wrongs, leveling of the field, fixing of the broken institutions is still the domain of the few ---- with little success. Yet 50% of our population, often more, against their own self interests...elect those persons whose strings are pulled and this same population sides with those who offer corrupt and absurd solutions (or none) or blame the poor for being poor. Dickens wrote a true tale when few wanted to know the truth. I wonder if those same statistics are etched in stone rather than in the hearts of men and women. I do not know why we continue to follow such dangerous footsteps.

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Iara Késsia Barbosa

the best book I've read until now

Reviewed in Brazil on September 19, 2021

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I'm without words with this book. Woke up so many feelings. i loved and it's one of my favorites at all

Paul Staunton

Classic

Reviewed in Belgium on October 19, 2023

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A classic

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Ottimo prodotto

Reviewed in Italy on April 25, 2023

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Acquistato per fare un regalo, molto gradito

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Contenta

Reviewed in Spain on January 25, 2021

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Nos llegó antes del día indicado y en muy buen estado.

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5 stars

Reviewed in India on November 4, 2018

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This book is, for me, Dickens' best. I loved every second of it, the darkness of Tom's steady descent into drinking and gambling were brilliant and there were several times I found myself simply rereading a few paragraphs over and over, in awe at them. (The end of Chapter XIX, The Whelp, is something I hold in very high regard as possibly one of his best pieces of writing ever.) I want to deal with the characters individually from here, since I feel they are all very important.

Mr Gradgrind - Facts. This man's obsession with facts and hate for fantasy is possibly one of the most genius parts of the plot, highlighting exactly what Dickens means to say. His regret at the end serves to show the inevitable outcome of living his sort of life, and is done in a very clever way. His name is also wonderful. I like to say it. Gradgrind. It's great, isn't it?

Bounderby - Dickens made me hate him, and he was made to be hated. For all his bluster and superiority he is in fact worse in moral integrity than Stephen or Tom, which is why I was intensely glad as Louisa took her steps away from him. He really is a 'bounder'.

Louisa/Loo - A perfect tragic heroine, but I couldn't help thinking more than once that she should really get some backbone. But I suppose that was the point, so she was well done too.

Cecilia/Sissy - I didn't like her very much, but I did like the way she was used, as the embodiment of fancy and fun. She served to drive the point home and was useful in terms of story development.

Tom/The Whelp - Goodness, I hated him sometimes. As I've already said, his descent was done well and some of the description around him was fantastic. Dickens' habit of referring to him as the whelp was perfect.

Stephen Blackpool - The character I could emphathise with most, he was likeable and pitiable. I loved his struggle with Slackbridge and the Trade Union, and his contrasting relationships with Rachel and his wife made me feel very sorry for both of them. His ending was also very sad, and shows just how cruel people can be to each other.

Mrs Sparsit - One of the most brilliant in the book. The image of her staircase, with Louisa walking to the bottom, is one that has stuck with me as being particularly genius. I also laughed at her disappointment by the train towards the end, as she was so anxious to see the downfall of others she ended up being nothing more than a jobless window.

James Harthouse - Although for most of the book I wished Louisa would run away with him, the end convinced me otherwise. Still, he was a very interesting character who provided a catalyst for all the suppressed emotions of the Gradgrinds/Bounderbys.

All in all, a brilliant book.

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