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Hard Times
- Narrated by: Martin Jarvis
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
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Hard Times
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Publisher's Summary
Exclusively from Audible
Despite the title, Dickens's portrayal of early industrial society is less relentlessly grim than that in novels by contemporaries such as Elizabeth Gaskell or Charles Kingsley.
Hard Times weaves the tale of Thomas Gradgrind, a hard-headed politician who raises his children Louisa and Tom without love and to have no empathy, their lives completely devoid of beauty, culture, or imagination. Only after a series of crises does their father realise that the manner in which he raised his children has ruined their lives.
Other characters include Sissy, the circus girl with love to spare who is deserted and adopted into the Gradgrind family, as well as the honest mill worker Stephen Blackpool and the bombastic mill owner Josiah Bounderby.
The story is a vehement condemnation of industrialisation and its dehumanising effects on its workers and communities in mid-19th-century England. George Orwell praised Dickens and the novel for its 'generous anger.'
Concentrated and compressed in its narrative form, Hard Times is at once a fable, an audiobook of ideas, and a social story that seeks to engage directly and analytically with political issues.
It may be one of Dickens's shortest works but it is also one of his triumphs.
One of eight children, Dickens came from a very poor family, with his father eventually being sent to debtor's prison. At the age of 12, Dickens was forced to start work in a blacking factory in order to help clear the family debt. His troublesome childhood likely contributed to some of the novel's ideas and lent him a sympathetic voice for the poor.
Due to his vivid depictions of the poverty-stricken, 'Dickensian' has ingrained itself in the English language, becoming the choice word to describe an unacceptable level of poverty.
Narrator Biography
Martin Jarvis is one of Britain's most admired actors. His audiobook output is legendary. He is described in Vanity Fair as 'the Olivier of audiobooks' and 'genius of the Spoken Word' in the LA Times. Award-winning recordings range from titles by Charles Dickens, P.G. Wodehouse, and Michael Frayn to thrillers by Jeffrey Archer, Wilbur Smith, Ian Fleming, and Dick Francis.
Martin Jarvis has starred in many acclaimed West End and National Theatre productions and received the Theatre World Award as Jeeves on Broadway. Numerous UK television appearances encompass Law & Order, Doctor Who, Endeavour, Inspector Morse, and The Forsyte Saga. In America: Murder She Wrote, Numb3rs, Cosmos and Walker, Texas Ranger. Films include Titanic, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Wreck-It Ralph. Videogames: 'Alfred' in Batman, 'Finn McMissile' in Cars.
Martin is invested by HM the Queen as Officer of Order of the British Empire (OBE).
What listeners say about Hard Times
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Kindle Customer
- 23-07-2022
Perfect place to start on Dickens.
This would be a great place to start for anyone wanting to become familiar with Dickens, part of the shared inheritance of all English speakers no matter your race, place of birth or native tongue. I am about five books in to Dickens, which I intersperse with other great literature, but the others are mostly very long. On my incomplete experience, this would be an excellent starting point (also Tale Two Cities). At 10 hours or so it is half, even a third in some cases, of Dickens's typical length. Plus Martin Jarvis performs it brilliantly (It is performed not read). Yet neither length nor delivery would mean much if it wasn't great literature. Or representative of the author. I don't say Hard Times is his very best necessarily (though others do and most consider it one of his best) but it really is very good and after committing ten hours to 'reading' Hard Times you would have a very good idea of what Dickens is like, why he mattered to so many past generations and, in short, what the fuss is all about. I highly recommend. Actually I encourage, urge even. Like Shakespeare, Dickens really does belong to world, and rightly so, but if you happen to live in the English speaking world, whether your family arrived 5 minutes ago or is established for centuries, this part of your cultural inheritance. Don't wait, dive in, commit and you will be rewarded.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Stephen Grocott
- 24-01-2024
Not Dickens' best but well worthwhile nonetheless
This was a little too contrived but absolutely beautifully written and brilliantly narrated. Not terribly complex or surprising but a fantastic read.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Ridesabikealot
- 18-10-2023
Great Dickens
Loved it. Great reader, heartfelt story, and as always, beautifully drawn characters and beautiful Dickens prose…
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Peter van Zweeden
- 08-05-2024
A simple tale with a good message
Brilliant narration by Jarvis of a quaint tale that will encourage parents and teachers to nurture children's hearts well as their minds.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- anthony
- 15-09-2019
Martin Jarvis does it again
Whilst no one can doubt Dicken’s genius, it’s Jarvis that makes the prose accessible and come to life in such a delightful and entertaining way. One of my favourite narrators after the late lamented Patrick Tull. More of the same please!
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Jim Parker
- 16-07-2022
Masterpiece
Perhaps Dickens’ greatest novel, certainly the one most relevant to the times in which we now live. Incredibly moving in parts but also occasionally hilarious in its targeting of cant and hypocrisy, Hard Times is a masterpiece. The reading by the brilliant voice actor Martin Jarvis brings all the wonderful characters to life.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 29-12-2020
Difficult times, sarcastic and dark portrayals
a fascinating story of marriage, education, expectations delivered in a darkly sarcastic tone by Charles Dickens, who shines glimmers of hope for family life through representation of honesty, compassion and kindness even during the despair over hard times.
The voice actor does a fine job and my lower rating is due to the poor chapter arrangements of this audio book which are awry from the book's real chapters.
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