Hard Times

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) is one of the most acclaimed and popular writers of all time. His many works include the classics The Old Curiosity Shop, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, Barnaby Rudge, A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, Bleak House, Hard Times, Our Mutual Friend, The Pickwick Papers and many more. Fred Kaplan is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English at Queens College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York. A biographer and literary scholar, he is the author of John Quincy Adams: American Visionary, The Singular Mark Twain: A Biography, Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer, Henry James: The Imagination of Genius: A Biography, and Dickens: A Biography, among others. His Thomas Carlyle: A Biography was nominated for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award and for the Pulitzer Prize. His Sacred Tears: Sentimentality in Victorian Fiction, Dickens and Mesmerism: The Hidden Springs of Fiction, and Miracles of Rare Device: The Poet’s Sense of Self in Nineteenth-Century Poetry are important contributions to the study of Romantic and Victorian British literature and culture. He is currently at work on a study of Lincoln, John Quincy Adams, and slavery and a biography of Thomas Jefferson.