Hard Times

By: Charles Dickens

Narrated by: Chris MacDonnell

Charles Dickens's Hard Times (1854) is a satirical novel, as well as a romantic one. It is a commentary on social issues of the Industrial Revolution. He sets the tale in his imaginary northern location of Coketown. Gradgrind, father of Tom and Louisa, as the superintendent of schools wants education and life to be founded on facts alone. Bounderby, a Banker, and Industrialist is a boastful, bullying, self-proclaimed vagabond made good. Sissy is an abandoned girl whose father is a failed clown and horseman in Mr. Sleary's traveling show. Stephen Blackpool is an honest worker whose wife becomes "a degraded, drunken wretch" and an unbearable burden to him. Rachael is the woman who he turns to for friendship and support. Mr. Harthouse is a carefree philanderer. Their stories are brilliantly and movingly woven together in this masterpiece of storytelling which could only be forged by the pen of Charles Dickens

Public Domain (P)2023 Chris MacDonnell