Hard Times (Vintage Classics Dickens Series)

Description

`Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else.' The children at Mr Gradgrind's school are sternly ordered to stifle their imaginations and pay attention only to cold, hard reality. They live in a smoky, troubled industrial town so entertainment is hard to come by and resentments run deep. The effects of Gradgrind's teaching on his own children, Tom and Louisa, are particularly profound and leave them ill-equipped to deal with the unpredictable desires of the human heart. Luckily for them they have a friend in Sissy Jupe, the child of a circus clown, who retains her warm-hearted, compassionate nature despite the pressures around her. Also in the Vintage Classics Dickens Series: A Christmas Carol A Tale of Two Cities David Copperfield Great Expectations Oliver Twist

Reviews

"A masterpiece...a completely serious work of art" -- F.R.Leavis "The greatest of Dickens' work...should be studied with close and earnest care" -- John Ruskin "Big and earnest, though circus folk and bank robbery add colour to its canvas of industrialists and loveless marriages" * Sunday Times *