Hard Times

Synopsis

Introduction and notes by dinny thorold, university of westminster. Illustrated by f. Walker and maurice greiffenhagen. Unusually for dickens, hard times is set, not in london, but in the imaginary mid-victorian northern industrial town of coketown with its blackened factories, downtrodden workers and polluted environment. This is the soulless domain of the strict utilitarian thomas gradgrind and the heartless factory owner josiah bounderby.