Based on the 1854 book-publication of Hard Times, the text has been altered only for consistency with contemporary British spelling and punctuation. Right-hand page headings give dates of appearance for the twenty installments in Household Words, Dickens's periodical in which the novel was originally serialized. Division into three books was not made in Household Words, where chapters ran consecutively from I to XXXVII,without their present headings.

The footnotes in the text are the editor's.

Written deliberately to increase the circulation of Dickens's weekly magazine, Household Words, Hard Times was a huge and instantaneous success upon publication in 1854. Yet this novel is not the cheerful celebration of Victorian life one might have expected from the beloved author of The Pickwick Papers and The Old Curiosity Shop. Compressed, stark, allegorical, it is a bitter expose of capitalist exploitation during the industrial revolution-and a fierce denunciation of the philosophy of materialism, which threatens the human imagination in all times and places. With a typically unforgettable cast of characters-includin~ the heartless fact-worshipper Mr. Gradgrind, the warmly endearing Sissy Jupe, and the eternally noble Stephen BlackpooI-Hard times carries a uniquely powerful message and remains one of the most widely read of Dickens's major novels.

       BOOK THE FIRST. SOWING

I The One Thing Needful

II Murdering the Innocents

IIIA Loophole

IV Mr. Bounderby

V The Keynote

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

XIII Rachael

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 Gunpowder

VIII Explosion ...

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 Very Ridiculous

III Very Decided

IV Lost

V Found

VI The Starlight

VII Whelp-hunting

VIII Philosophical

IX Final