This Dover edition, first published in 2010, is an unabridged republication of the text from "A Christmas Carol" (1843) and "The Chimes" (1844) both published by Chapman and Hall, London; "The Cricket on the Hearth" (1845) and "The Haunted Man and The Ghost's Bargain" (1848) both published by Bradbury and Evans, London; "The Seven Poor Travellers" (1854) and "The Holly-Tree" (1855) both publish…
The Evening arrived; the boys took their places. The master, in his cook's uniform, stationed himself at the copper, his pauper assistants ranged themselves behind him; the gruel was served out; and a long grace was said over the short commons. The gruel disappeared; the boys whispered each other, and winked at Oliver, while his next neighbours nudged him. Child as he was, he was desperate with…
Unusually for Dickens, Hard Times is set, not in London, but in the imaginary mid-Victorian Northern industrial town of Coketown with its blackened factories, downtrodden workers and polluted environment. This is the soulless domain of the striet utihuarism Thomas Gradigrind and the heartless factory qwner Josiah Bounderby. However, human joy is not excluded thanks to Mr Sleary's Horse-Riding c…