Hard Times

The ´terrible mistake´ was the contemporary utilitarian philosophy, expounded in Hard Times (1854) as the Philosophy of Fact by the hard-headed disciplinarian Thomas Gradgrind. But the novel, Dickens´s shortest, is more than a polemical tract for the times; the tragic story of Louisa Gradgrind and her father is one of Dickens´s triumphs. When Louisa, trapped in a loveless marriage, falls prey to an idle seducer, the crisis forces her father to reconsider his cherished system. Yet even as the development of the story reflects Dickens´s growing pessimism about human nature and society, Hard Times marks his return to the theme which had made his early works so popular: the amusements of the people. Sleary´s circus represents Dickens´s most considered defence of the necessity of entertainment, and infuses the novel with the good humour which has ensured its appeal to generations of readers. Hard Times--Dickens´s shortest novel and one of his major triumphs--tells the tragic story of Louisa Gradgrind and her father.