Hard Times A Norton Critical Edition Author:Charles Dickens This text of "Hard Times" is the first to be established by a comparative study of all the surviving versions of Dickens' novel, incorporating evidence from the original manuscript and corrected proof. Study of the genesis of the novel is facilitated by the reproduction--again for the first time--of Dickens' working plans and by meticulous textu... more »al notes.
Among the background reading, this Critical Edition offers all of Dickens' available correspondence about the novel. The three great controversies of the Victorian era with which the novel is concerned --industrialism, education, and utilitarianism--are vividly documented in contemporary background selections and reviews.
Among the important critics reprinted here are Hippolyte Taine, John Ruskin, George Bernard Shaw, F. R. Leavis, Monroe Engel, and John Holloway.