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.
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens This engrossing tale relates Ebenezer Scrooge's ghostly journeys through Christmases past, present, and future and his ultimate transformation from a harsh and grasping old miser to a charitable and compassionate human being.
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Orphaned Pip is apprenticed to the dirty work of the forge but dreams of becoming a gentleman — and one day finds himself in possession of "great expectations." Dickens' finest novel.
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens Against the backdrop of the French Revolution, Dickens unfolds his masterpiece of drama, adventure, and romance about a man falsely accused of treason. Excitement and derring-do in the shadow of the guillotine.
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens The tale of a waif's unwilling but inevitable recruitment into a scabrous gang of thieves, this novel offers a realistic portrait of the correlation between poverty and crime.
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 Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens Dickens's last novel, a mystery unfinished at his death, has become all the more tantalizing to avid readers who have tried to provide a solution to the mystifying disappearance of Edwin Drood.
