Unusually for Dickens Hard Times is set not in London but in the imaginary midVictorian Northern industrial town of Coketown with its blackened factories downtrodden workers and polluted environment This is the soulless domain of the strict utilitarian Thomas Gradgrind and the heartless factory owner Josiah Bounderby However human joy is not excluded thanks to Mr Slearys HorseRiding circus a gi…
Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens with an introduction and Notes by Dr T.C.B. Cook. Following the success of Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby was hailed as a comic triumph and firmly established Dickens as a 'literary gentleman'. It has a full supporting cast of delectable characters that range from the iniquitous Wackford Squeers and his family, to the delightful Mrs Nic…