Charles Dickens' Hard Times

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Pearson/Longman, 2004 - Fiction - 353 pages
Part of Longman's Cultural Edition series, Charles Dickens' Hard Times offers this intriguing novel within several provocative and illuminating contexts--cultural, critical, and literary.

Based on the first edition, Hard Times is extensively annotated, with a lively introduction and helpful notes on cultural references, social and political mores, literary allusions, and unfamiliar word usage. In addition to providing a chronology coordinating Dickens' life with key historical events, the editors explore the political, economical, educational, and social state of England in the 1830s and 1840s. Many of these issues are reflected in the section of Victorian-era reactions to Hard Times. A guide to further reading is provided as a service to students, scholars, and the curious.

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Contents

Hard Times 1854
3
Condition of England
267
and Its Discontents
302
Copyright

3 other sections not shown

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About the author (2004)

Charles Dickens, perhaps the best British novelist of the Victorian era, was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England on February 7, 1812. His happy early childhood was interrupted when his father was sent to debtors' prison, and young Dickens had to go to work in a factory at age twelve. Later, he took jobs as an office boy and journalist before publishing essays and stories in the 1830s. His first novel, The Pickwick Papers, made him a famous and popular author at the age of twenty-five. Subsequent works were published serially in periodicals and cemented his reputation as a master of colorful characterization, and as a harsh critic of social evils and corrupt institutions. His many books include Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Bleak House, Great Expectations, Little Dorrit, A Christmas Carol, and A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens married Catherine Hogarth in 1836, and the couple had nine children before separating in 1858 when he began a long affair with Ellen Ternan, a young actress. Despite the scandal, Dickens remained a public figure, appearing often to read his fiction. He died in 1870, leaving his final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, unfinished.

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