Divided into sections of sowing, reaping, and garnering, Hard Times is a scathing portrait of the outcome of Victorian capitalism, industrialism, and utilitarianism. Set in the manufacturing city of "Coketown," Dickens focuses all his powers of observation on the treatment of the working class by their employers. Looking at the outcome of mistreating employees and living a life based purely on emotionless rationality, Dickens assaults the ideas that prosperity and morality are intertwined, and that people can be reduced to numbers, statistics, and profits.
Vintage Edition. 288 pages, softcover.