Hard Times (Norton Critical Editions)

by Dickens, Charles; Kaplan, Fred (Editor)

• ISBN13: 9780393975604
• ISBN10: 0393975606
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-12-19
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Summary

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-including the heartless fact-worshipper Mr. Gradgrind, the warmly endearing Sissy Jupe, and the eternally noble Stephen Blackpool-"Hard Times" carries a uniquely powerful message and remains one of the most widely read of Dickens's major novels.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
The Text of Hard Times
Title Page	1	(1)
Dedication	2	(1)
The Contents of Hard Times	3	(2)
Hard Times	5	(218)
A Note on the Text	223	(1)
The Genesis of Hard Times: A History of the Text	223	(2)
Dickens' Working Plans	225	(11)
The Running Headlines	236	(3)
Our Text	239	(1)
The Textual Notes	240	(35)
Textual Notes	243	(30)
Emendations List	273	(2)
Contexts	275	(78)
Hard Times Calendar	276	(1)
Dickens' Comments on the Composition of Hard Times	277	(11)
Industrialism	287	(1)
The Preston Strike: A History	288	(3)
An Ostracized Workman	291	(1)
The Preston Lock-Out	292	(3)
James Lowe
On Strike	295	(12)
Charles Dickens
Ground in the Mill	307	(2)
Henry Morley
The Factory Legislation: A Warning Against Meddling Legislation (Manchester 1855)	309	(3)
Harriet Martineau
Dickens the Novelist: The Preston Strike and Hard Times	312	(13)
R. D. Butterworth
Education	325	(1)
Preface to A Series of Lessons	325	(1)
J. M.M'Culloch
A Conference of Statisticians	326	(1)
Charles Dickens
Joe Whelks and Education	327	(4)
Dickens as a Critic of Education	331	(2)
Jane Sinnett
Atrophy of Imagination in a Scientist	333	(1)
Charles Darwin
Horses, Flowers, and the Department of Practical Art	333	(5)
Philip Collins
Utilitarianism and the Science of Political Economy	337	(1)
The Mind and Character of Jeremy Bentham	338	(2)
John Stuart Mill
On Adam Smith and Laissez-Faire	340	(1)
J. R. McCulloch
Malthus and Population	341	(2)
Useful Education for the Working Classes	343	(2)
The Condition of the Working Class	345	(1)
Thomas Carlyle
Selling Cheap	346	(1)
On the Economic Fallacies of Hard Times	347	(6)
E. P. Whipple
Criticism	353	(124)
The Two Classes of Characters in Hard Times	355	(1)
Hippolyte Taine
A Note on Hard Times	355	(1)
John Ruskin
Dickens' Portrayal of the Working Class in Hard Times	356	(1)
George Gissing
Hard Times	357	(7)
Bernard Shaw
Hard Times: An Analytic Note	364	(20)
F. R. Leavis
Hard Times	384	(3)
Monroe Engel
Imagery and Theme in Hard Times	387	(12)
Robert Barnard
Hard Times: The Meaning of the Title	399	(1)
David Craig
How Successful Is Hard Times?	400	(9)
David Lodge
Hard Times and the Structure of Industrialism: The Novel as Factory	409	(10)
Patricia E. Johnson
Mechanomorphism in Hard Times	419	(10)
Gorman Beauchamp
The Literary Imagination in Public Life	429	(10)
Martha C. Nussbaum
Having It Both Ways: Gender and Paradox in Hard Times	439	(6)
David L. Cowles
Writing as a Woman: Dickens, Hard Times and Feminine Discourses	445	(10)
Jean Ferguson Carr
Dickens' Pathology of Time in Hard Times	455	(10)
Eric P. Levy
Hard Times and a Critique of Utopia: A Typological Study	465	(12)
Leona Toker
A Chronology	477	(2)
Charles Dickens
Selected Bibliography	479