Hard Times and Pictures from Italy

6W, Charles Dickens. Eight Illustrations. London: Chapman and Hall,193, Piccadilly. aprox. 1875

Notes

Hard Times is Dickens’s shortest novel, but it packs a sharp punch. Set in the grim industrial town of Coketown, it takes aim at utilitarianism—the idea that life should be ruled entirely by facts, efficiency, and profit. The story follows characters like Thomas Gradgrind, who raises children on “Facts, facts, facts,” and Louisa Gradgrind, who grows up emotionally starved by that philosophy.

Dickens contrasts cold rationalism with imagination, compassion, and human warmth. Factory life, child labor, and the dehumanizing effects of industrial capitalism are front and center. Compared to his more sentimental novels, Hard Times is tight, bitter, and satirical, almost modern in its social critique.

Description

3/4 green leather and marble, three edge marble, marbled end papers, slight rubbing on four corners, intact, good condition.