"HARD TIMES(Charles Dickens)"(Witet Oscar Wilde):The Wordsworth Classics covers a huge list of beloved works of literature in English and translations. This growing series is rigorously updated, with scholarly introductions and notes added to new titles.

Unusually t'or Dickens, lIctrd Times is set, not in London, but inthe imaginary mid-Vietorim Northern industrial town ofCoketown with its blackened factories, downtrodden workers andpolluted environment. This is the soulless domain of the strictutilitarian Thomas Gradgrind and the heartless factory ownerJosiah Bounderby. Ilowever, hullllnl ioy is not excluded thanks toMr Sleary's Ilorse-Riding' circus, a gin-soaked and hilarioustroupe of open-hearted and affectionate people who act as anantidote to all the drudgery and misery endured hv the ordinarycitizens of Coketown.

Macaulay attacked Hard Times for its 'sullen socialism', hut20th-eenturv critics such as George Bernard Shaw and F.R.Leavis have praised this hook in the highest terms, while readersthe world over have found inspiration and enjoyment from whatis hoth Dickens' shortest completed novel and also one of hisimportant statements on Victorian soeiety.

INTRODUCTION

BOOK THE FIRST -- SOWING

I The One TbingNeedful

II Murdering the Innocents

III zzt Loophole

IV Mr Bounderby

V The Key-Note

VI Sleary's Horsemanship

VII Mrs Sparsit

VIII Never Wonder

IX Sissy's Progress

X Stephen Blackpool

XI No Way Out

XII The Old Woman

XlII Rachad

XIV The Great Manufacturer

XV Father and Daughter

XVI Husband and Wife

BOOK THE SECOND--REAPING

I Effects in the Bank

II Mr James Harthouse

III The Whelp

IV Men and Brothers

V Men and Masters

VI Fading Away

VII Gunpowdo"

VIII Fxplosion

IX Hearing the Last of It

X Mrs Sparsit's Staircase

XI Lower and Lower

XII Down

BOOK THE THIRD -- GARNERING

I Another Thing Needful

II Voy Ridiculous

III Very Decided

IV Lost

V Found

VI The Starlight

VII Whelp-Hunting

VIII Philosophical

IX Final