This text, that of the 1854 first edition, has been re-edited in light of recent scholarly findings. Annotations have been revised and expanded.

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 ...

Set in an industrial city in Northern England during the Victorian era, Thomas Gradgrind, a wealthy and retired man, devotes his life to the rationalist philosophy, and raises ...