Victorian Book Club – Hard Times by Charles Dickens

“Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else.”

Charles Dickens’s Hard Times: For These Times tells a story about honoring the value of the human heart in an age of materialism and social injustice. It takes place in Coketown, where Mr. Thomas Gradgrind feeds his pupils and his family with facts, banning imagination and wonder from young minds. Consequently, his obedient daughter Louisa becomes trapped in a loveless marriage, and his son Tom rebels to become embroiled in crime. As their fortunes cross with an array of colorful characters, including a free-spirited circus girl and a victimized mill worker, Gradgrind is forced to question everything he believes in. Although written in 1854, this remains one of the most relevant novels Dickens ever created and still speaks to today’s world.