Contexts for Hard Times Charles Dickens Contexts for Hard Times

Charles Dickens: Life Born February 7, 1812, in Portsmouth. 1824. Father enters debtors’ prison and Dickens goes to work at a blacking factory. 1829. Works as a shorthand reporter writing up legal speeches.

Life, continued 1836. Marries Catherine Hogarth; the couple have 10 children. 1842. Visits North America. 1856. Buys Gad’s Hill Place, a mansion he had dreamed of as a boy. 1858. Separates from Catherine; continues giving public readings and acting in plays. 1867-68. Readings tour of North America. 1870. Dies at Gad’s Hill June 9 of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Selected Works 1836-37. Pickwick Papers Adventures of Oliver Twist, 1837-39 Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, 1838-39 The Old Curiosity Shop, 1840-41 A Christmas Carol, 1843 David Copperfield (1849-50) Bleak House (1852-53) Hard Times: For These Times (1854) Little Dorrit (1855-57) A Tale of Two Cities (1859) Great Expectations (1860-61) Our Mutual Friend (1865)

Serial Publication Dickens edited as well as publishing his work in serial publications. Bentley’s Miscellany Master Humphrey’s Clock Household Words All the Year Round

Serials

Hard Times Serialized weekly in Household Words, April 1-August 12, 1854. At the same time, he was giving public readings, editing the journal, traveling with his family to Boulogne.

Serial and Novel Publication The “triple decker” novel was the typical format; most novels were published in three volumes. Lending libraries such as Mudie’s Lending Library, to which patrons subscribed, could then lend out Volume 1 to one patron, Volume 2 to another, and so on. For serial publication, however, authors had to ensure that readers would remember plots and characters.

Keeping readers interested What techniques do you see in Hard Times for keeping readers interested in the plot and characters? Character names? Catch phrases or character traits? Broad themes that include opposing ideas? Cliffhanger endings to sections? Mysterious characters? (Mrs. Pegler) Multiple stories?

Round and Flat Characters E. M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel (1927) Round characters: “capable of surprising the reader in a convincing way” Flat characters: actions, personality, and motivations can be summed up in a phrase or sentence. Which of Dickens’s characters are round? Which are flat?