Hard Times

Mr. Gradgrind, views himself as the most practical man in Coketown. He has raised his children, Tom and Louisa, to be no-nonsense, unimaginative, and unsentimental. His friend—obnoxious, wealthy Josiah Bounderby—employs Tom as a clerk at his bank, and marries Louisa, thirty years his junior. But soon emotionally-repressed Louisa is nearly seduced into committing adultery, and unscrupulous Tom is suspected of robbing Bounderby’s bank. Will Louisa be able to make her father see the shortcomings of his personal philosophy before it’s too late? Or will Mr. Gradgrind be forced to reap what he sowed? Written by English author Charles Dickens, this satire of Victorian economic principles and social inequity was first published as a serial in Household Words over twenty weeks in 1854. This unabridged version is taken from the 1905 copyright edition.