Classic 1845 novel offers a powerful indictment of the dehumanizing effects of mid-19th-century industrialization. Thomas Gradgrind raises his children, Tom and Louisa, in a sterile atmosphere of strict practicality. With no guiding principles, the young Gradgrinds sink into lives of desperation and despair, played out against the grim backdrop of Coketown, a wretched industrial community.
Here's a sample of other books in this Dover category
The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens Heart-wrenching tale of Little Nell and her doting grandfather who flee from cold and brutal London in the 1840s to escape debt and to roam the English countryside as beggars.
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens Based on the author's own life, this epic traces David's progress from his mother's sheltering arms to boarding-school and sweatshop to the rewards of friendship, romance, and self-discovery in his vocation as a writer.
The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler Hailed by George Bernard Shaw as "one of the summits of human achievement," this 1903 novel satirizes the hypocrisy underlying Victorian England's major institutions — family, church, and class structure.
