Martin Chuzzlewit

Martin Chuzzlewit
by Charles Dickens

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From School Library Journal
Grade 7-12-Dickens' satire on the Victorian family and the philosophies of a society which sought to turn men into machines.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
[Editor's Note--The following is a combined review with DAVID COPPERFIELD, GHOST STORIES, GREAT EXPECTATIONS, HARD TIMES, THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD, NICHOLAS NICKLEBY, OLIVER TWIST, OUR MUTUAL FRIEND, THE PICKWICK PAPERS, and A TALE OF TWO CITIES.]--New Millennium presents the distinguished Academy Award winner Paul Scofield interpreting abridgments of the novels and stories of Charles Dickens. These are excellent readings, sonorous and compelling. However, they lack the verve and character of the old Victorian qualities that have been so wonderfully captured on cassette by Martin Jarvis and Miriam Margolyes, among others. And while few authors benefit more from pruning than the paid-by-the-word Dickens, some of these cuttings are far too drastic. In addition, hurried post-production is evident in numerous audible edits, frequent mouth noises, and occasional overlapping of announcer and narrator. Y.R. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Barry V. Qualls, Rutgers University
Graham Law’s edition of Hard Times is the most useful edition for teaching Dickens that I have seen...

Kate Flint, University of Oxford
This beautifully produced edition combines a freshly written, informative introduction with helpful and well-judged notes...

Book Description
By 1854, when Hard Times was published, Charles Dickens' magisterial progress as a writer had come to incorporate a many-sided, coherent vision of English society, both as it was and as he wished it to be. Hard Times. a classic Dickensian story of redemption set in a North of England town beset by industrialism, everywhere benefits from this vision - in the trenchancy of its satire, in its sweeping indignation at social injustice, and in the persistent humanity with which its author enlivens his largest and smallest incidents.

Download Description
Hard Times appeared in weekly parts in Household Words in 1854, printed on the pages usually occupied by leading articles on the major social issues of the day. In the overlapping worlds of Gradgrind's schoolroom, Bounderby the humbug industrialist and Sissy Jupe of Sleary's Circus, Dickens joyfully satirizes Utilitarianism, the self-help doctrines of Samuel Smiles and the mechanization of the mid-Victorian soul. It is a novel deeply preoccupied with childhood and family life, bursting with unresolvable tensions and contradictions and wonderfully entertaining in its metaphorical wit and invention.

The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature
Novel by Charles Dickens, published in serial form (as Hard Times: For These Times) in the periodical Household Words from April to August 1854 and in book form later the same year. The novel is a bitter indictment of industrialization, with its dehumanizing effects on workers and communities in mid-19th-century England. Louisa and Tom Gradgrind have been harshly raised by their father, an educator, to know nothing but the most factual, pragmatic information. Their lives are devoid of beauty, culture, or imagination, and the two have little or no empathy for others. Louisa marries Josiah Bounderby, a vulgar banker and mill owner. She eventually leaves her husband and returns to her father's house. Tom, unscrupulous and vacuous, robs his brother-in-law's bank. Only after these crises does their father realize that the principles by which he raised his children have corrupted their lives.

From the Publisher
The Broadview Literary Texts series is an effort to represent the ever-changing canon of literature in English by bringing together texts long regarded as classics with valuable, though lesser-known literature.

From the Inside Flap
By 1854, when Hard Times was published, Charles Dickens' magisterial progress as a writer had come to incorporate a many-sided, coherent vision of English society, both as it was and as he wished it to be. Hard Times. a classic Dickensian story of redemption set in a North of England town beset by industrialism, everywhere benefits from this vision - in the trenchancy of its satire, in its sweeping indignation at social injustice, and in the persistent humanity with which its author enlivens his largest and smallest incidents.

About the Author
Graham Law is an associate professor of English Studies at Waseda University, Japan. Law is widely published on the subject of nineteenth-century suspense novels and also the editor of two other Broadview Literary Texts series editions: Great Expectations (with Adrian Pinnington) and The Evil Genius.

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