Hard Times is one of the most popular novels by Charles Dickens. First published in 1854, the book chronicles the then English society and satirizes the socio- economic conditions of the era. It is the shortest of Dickens's novels in which the story is set in the fictitious Victorian industrial Coketown, One is easily carried away by its description in the novel that says, “It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it...” Hard Times has been one of Dickens' best-sellers and widely taught in schools.
The novel was serialized before the complete volume of the book was published. Hard Times follows a classical three-way structure in which first part of the book is entitled 'Sowing', second part is 'Reaping', and the third is 'Garnering.' In order to expose his views on the right of the common man, Dickens uses the character of Sleary, proprietor of Sleary's Circus.