"Do the wise thing and the kind thing too, and make the best of us and not the worst."
"Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts; nothing else will ever be of any service to them."
- Charles Dickens, Hard Times
Hard Times is the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The book surveys English society and satirizes the social and economic conditions of the era.
Hard Times is unusual in several ways. It is by far the shortest of Dickens's novels, barely a quarter of the length of those written immediately before and after it. Moreover, it is his only novel not to have scenes set in London. Instead, the story is set in the fictitious Victorian industrial Coketown, a generic Northern English mill-town.
The story concerns one Thomas Gradgrind, a "fanatic of the demonstrable fact," who raises his children, Tom and Louisa, in a stifling and arid atmosphere of grim practicality. A classic audiobook publishing event.
Produced by Macc Kay
Production executive Avalon Giuliano
ICON Intern Eden Garret Giuliano
©2021 Eden Garret Giuliano (P) 2021 Eden Garret Giuliano
Geoffrey Giuliano is the author of over thirty internationally bestselling biographies, including the London Sunday Times bestseller 'Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney' and 'Dark Horse: The Private Life of George Harrison'. He can be heard on the Westwood One Radio Network and has written and produced over seven hundred original spoken word albums and video documentaries on various aspects of popular culture. In addition, Giuliano is an occasional lecturer at Northwestern University.
