Hard Times, the story of siblings Louisa and Tom Gradgrind, who are brought up by their father according to strict - as he believes - rationalist principles, stands, according to critics, at the beginning of a period of the novellists creativity in which his worldview becomes gloomier, his social criticism increasingly radical, and his novels contain ever more violent attacks on the England of belief in progress, complacency, and economic prosperity. Dickens' great life theme is the contrast between this England, and the England of deep poverty that is being left behind. Gröls Classics - English Edition