ABSTRACT
Context and social background Dickens wrote Hard Times in 1854. In the hope that it would boost sales of the journal, it was published in weekly episodes in the paper, Household Words, which Dickens edited and published. The novel was published in book form in August 1854 when the serialisation was complete. Because it was written in weekly instalments, there are no subplots and descriptive detail is brief, so it is one of Dickens’ shortest and most accessible novels.
