Hard Times: Illustrated Platinum Edition (Free Audiobook Included), by Charles Dickens
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Hard Times: Illustrated Platinum Edition (Free Audiobook Included), by Charles Dickens
Ebook Download : Hard Times: Illustrated Platinum Edition (Free Audiobook Included), by Charles Dickens
How is this book unique?
- Amazon Sales Rank: #1776485 in eBooks
- Published on: 2015-11-11
- Released on: 2015-11-11
- Format: Kindle eBook
From School Library Journal Grade 7-12-Dickens' satire on the Victorian family and the philosophies of a society which sought to turn men into machines. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review David Timson reads Dickens's last complete novel with a sense of fun. As always, Dickens creates a fabulous array of characters: the nouveau riche Veneerings, the dwarf who makes doll clothes, the bizarre schoolmaster, and the abysmally poor who trawl the Thames for bodies or daily sift the dust and dirt of Victorian England for a skimpy living. Timson's dramatic talents add dimension to each personality-just the sort of acting that makes an audio experience so satisfying. Naxos has done a fine job of abridging the book (Timson also reads the unabridged version on 28 CDs). Not much is lost in terms of plot and characterization, and Dickens's great satiric and social themes come through clearly: the plight and misery of the poor and the greed and heartless stupidity of the rich. If the abridgment seems a bit disjointed, it simply follows the novel's narrative style. This is a wonderful listen for Dickens fans and novices alike. - Pulbisher's Weekly
Review "Graham Law's edition of Hard Times is the most useful edition for teaching Dickens that I have seen. Its text is authoritative, and the range of contextual documents included gives readers an opportunity to situate the work in the discussions of industrialization and labor as they took place in nineteenth-century England." (Barry V. Qualls )"This beautifully produced edition combines a freshly written, informative introduction with helpful and well-judged notes. Particularly welcome is the wealth of documentary material and examples carefully chosen from other contemporary fiction, enabling readers to place Hard Times within its full Victorian context. This is an excellent edition—clear, authoritative and stimulating." (Kate Flint )
Where to Download Hard Times: Illustrated Platinum Edition (Free Audiobook Included), by Charles Dickens
Most helpful customer reviews
75 of 82 people found the following review helpful. More Than Facts By Oddsfish I initially lamented the fact that Hard Times was assigned to me in my British lit. class. I had read some of Dickens's melodramas like A Tale of Two Cities and Oliver Twist and enjoyed them, but everything I heard about Hard Times said this was nothing like those. This was supposedly just strictly social commentary. My interpretation of that: BORING.But then I read it.Hard Times isn't like Dickens's other novels, but I don't think that it has any less heart than those masterpieces. In fact, Dickens endured himself much further to me with this novel as he has his characters perform Thomas Carlyle's enduring philosophy.The novel follows the Gradgrind family who is raised adhering to FACTS and living in a society which worships the manufacturing machine. As the novel progresses, connections are made and broken, and the characters come to the realization that there is much more to reality than the material facts.Hard Times is told so compassionately. The reader cares for these people and their tragic lives. The story is also told with biting humor that still cuts at today's society (this novel feels really modern), and the underlying philosophy is one which is so needed in our post-modern world. I would certainly recommend this novel to fans of Dickens and to fans of the truly literary novel.
34 of 35 people found the following review helpful. CERTAINLY ONE OF MY FAVORITES. There have been so many readings, this one is like an old friend. By D. Blankenship Arguably, Dickens could be classified as the greatest of all English speaking novelists...of all times. There are very few writers that can offer his consistency, novel after novel, story after story. Yes, many have written works that perhaps equal any of his given works, but few if any have been able to turn out such a volume of pure quality. Very, very few authors have had such a large portion of their work pass the test of time. Dickens gains new readers year in and year out and there is a reason for this!Over the past 50 or so years I have heard this particular work referred to as "not Dickens' best," and "A minor work by Dickens," and other comments along those lines. I am really not in a position, nor do I have the ability to proclaim or rank this author's work one way or the other. Dickens for me is like any other author...I either like it or I do not like it; it either is a joy to read or it is not. Now I have read this short novel at least five times over the years and listen to several versions on CD and Tape. The best, minor Dickens' work, timeless classic, not pertinent in today's world, a mere political rant? Well I don't know. I do know that it is one of my favorites and do look forwarded to reading it again down the road. I am one of those horrid and probably misguided individuals who sort of make their own mind up about anything I read, and more or less ignore the pontifications of those that are suppose to know about such things. All that being said though, I cannot look you in the eye and state that I have ever read one story; one word by this author that I did not enjoy right down to the tip of my toes. He delights me.The setting of course is in Victorian England and the Industrial Revolution is in full tilt. Make no mistake; Dickens makes no pretenses of not being of the extreme left ilk...a good little Socialist through and through. This work, like many others make his feeling well known. Like much of his work, there is no in-between here. The characters portrayed here are either very, very evil or they are very, very good. The author handles social situations in much the same way he handles his characters in this work. All are exaggerated to a certain extent, all are black and white and there is little middle ground to be found. The Capitalists are truly pigs and the working classes, the proletariat, are all Saint like creatures. For what the author is attempting here, this is quite appropriate.Now let it be know right here that I have spent a lifetime trying my best of completely ignore the effete yammering from the left and the bellicose braying from the right in all matters. I am one of those creatures who simply do not care and more or less chose my own road. I read this story and others like it, for the sheer joy of soaking in the written words of a maters story teller. While the political and social message here is not lost on me, I simply choose to ignore it. That is just me though and it certainly makes me feel nothing less of those that take the political message and run with, or reject it... more power to them.As with all of his other work, Dickens has created some unforgettable, if exaggerated characters in this work; my favorite Gradgrind (who, I must admit, sort of reminding me of my own father), his children Tom and Louisa, the young girl Grangrind has taken to raise, Sissy Jupe and of course the completely obnoxious cad Bounderby. Even the location; the city of Coketown is more like a character than a place displaying many of the characteristics of a human, rather than that of a town or village. Dickens is able to describe these people and places in such a way that they become close friends...even the evil ones, soon after they are introduced....well, maybe not friends, but certainly people you know and will want to revisit from time to time at the very least.The term "hard times," while a good title for this work is a bit misleading in a way, as there is plenty of humor injected throughout the book. Seldom does a chapter pass that I find myself not chuckling over the bits of ironic humor and scathing satire the author inserts here and there. The opening tirade of Bounderby is an absolute hoot even to this day, as it certainly was at the time it was written.And the plot! While it is simple at first glance in this work, there is never-the -less many little side plots going constantly, with personalities created an thrown in here and there to add flavor and spice to the overall story. The author skillfully blends these side paths he takes us upon and before the end of the story, brings us back to the main road. I like this! In many ways simple; in many ways so complex. I suppose the reader will find what they want.As with all of Dickens' work, the reader must at all times keep in mind when, where and why it was written. Time and place are quite important in the understanding of this particular author and to not consider these things, much will be lost to the modern mind.Highly recommend this one and I hope it brings others the same reading joy it has brought to be over the years.Don BlankenshipThe Ozarks
67 of 74 people found the following review helpful. Hardly a masterpiece, but brilliant at times By Peter Reeve "Hard Times" belongs to the second half of Dickens's writing career, in which his work becomes rather more somber and, by common critical assent, more mature and satisfying. Personally, I prefer his earlier work and his very first novel, "Pickwick Papers", is to my mind his greatest. Surprisingly, "Hard Times", despite its title and reputation, contains some brilliant flashes of Dickens humour, especially in the earlier part. The descriptions of Bounderby and Gradgrind, and the early dialogue with the circus folk, are genuinely hilarious.This is Dickens's shortest novel, about a third of the length of each of his previous four. Themes, subplots and characters are introduced without being fully explored. The author was perhaps feeling the constraints of writing in installments for a periodical, although he was well used to doing that. This relative brevity, together with the youth of some of the central characters, make this book a good introduction to Dickens for young readers.There are the large dollops of Victorian melodrama and the reliance on unlikely coincidences that mar much of Dickens's work. Also the usual tendency for characters to become caricatures and to have names that are a little too apt (a teacher called Mr. McChoakumchild?).The respected critic F.R. Leavis considered "Hard Times" to be Dickens's masterpiece and "only serious work of art". This seems to me wildly wrong, but such an extreme opinion may prompt you to read the book, just so that you can form your own opinion.I read it because I had just finished "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair, which deals with the plight of Chicago factory workers, and I wanted to compare the two. Sinclair's book has greater immediacy. It takes you much closer to the suffering of the workers. In the Dickens novel, the mill workers and their plight are distanced; they are relegated to being the background to a family drama, which is what really interests the author. A third, and still greater work, that examines the same themes, is Zola's "Germinal". I recommend all three. Together, they give real insight into the social conditions that led to the proletarian political and revolutionary movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
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