<B>Reason, Facts, and statistics...</B><BR><BR> DickensÂ' scathing portrait of Victorian industrial society and its misapplied utilitarian philosophy, <I>Hard Times</I> features schoolmaster Thomas Gradgrind, one of his most richly dimensional, memorable characters. Filled with the details and wonders of small-town life, it is also a daring novel of ideas—and ultimately, a celebration of love, hope, and limitless possibilities of the imagination.