书名：Hard Times艰难时世
难度：Lexile蓝思阅读指数760
作者：Charles Dickens查尔斯•狄更斯
出版社名称：Signet Classics
出版时间：2001
语种：英文
ISBN：9780451530998
商品尺寸：10.7 x 2.1x 17.2 cm
包装：简装
页数：318 （以实物为准）

Hard Times《艰难时世》是狄更斯代表作，19世纪非常有影响的小说之一。这部小说问世于一八五四年，是作者查尔斯·狄更斯在盛年期间的创作，被称为关于功利主义的不朽名著。《艰难时世》直接的创作动机出于商业方面的考虑，但狄更斯并不是为了取悦读者而创作这部作品的。相反，它是一部十分严肃的社会问题小说。在创作实践中，狄更斯由起初经济方面的考虑，转而关心社会的利益、劳资的矛盾、百姓的疾苦，体现出强烈的社会责任心。小说的成功完全在于文学创造的魅力，在于文学所具有的那种解剖人生、警示世人的功能！
此版本为Signet Classic版本，由芝加哥大学教授Frederick Busch作序，美国小说家Jane Smiley撰写后记。
“也许只有狄更斯，而不是塞万提斯，在世界性影响上可以与莎士比亚一较高低，他的作品与莎士比亚的作品、《圣经》和《古兰经》一样，都代表了我们能感受到的真正的文化多元主义。”——〔美国〕哈罗德•布鲁姆
Dickens’s scathing portrait of Victorian industrial society.
Coketown, the depressed mill town that is the setting for one of Charles Dickens’s most powerful and unforgettable novels, is all brick, machinery, and smoke-darkened chimneys. Its emblematic citizen, the schoolmaster Thomas Gradgrind, lives to impose his version of education: facts and statistics that feed the mind while starving the soul and spirit. Inflexible and unyielding, he places conformity above curiosity and logic over sentiment, only to see his philosophy warp and destroy the lives of his own family.

Filled with memorable characters and scenes,Hard Timesis a daring novel of ideas—and, ultimately, a celebration of love, hope, and imagination.

With an Introduction by Frederick Busch and an Afterword by Jane Smiley

主人公葛擂硬是个退休的五金商人，也是个功利主义的信徒，无论教育自己的子女或举办社会教育，都叫人信奉“事实”，并把人生看作是一种“隔着柜台的现钱交易”。在他的这种教育之下，女儿路易莎被迫嫁给了一个比她大三十岁的资本家庞得贝，婚后精神上备受折磨；儿子汤姆赌博成性，竟沦为窃贼而逃往海外。身为工厂老板兼银行家的庞得贝，捏造身世，吹嘘自己是白手起家，以此来麻痹工人，弄到众叛亲离。作者通过对葛擂硬和庞得贝两个典型人物得刻画及其家庭遭遇的描写，反映了十九世纪五十年代英国的阶级关系和社会风貌，对资产阶级做了较为深刻的揭露和批判。

Reason, Facts, and statistics...
Dickens’ scathing portrait of Victorian industrial society and its misapplied utilitarian philosophy,Hard Timesfeatures 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 their imagination.

Charles Dickens查尔斯•狄更斯（1812—1870年），19世纪英国杰出的批判现实主义小说家。他特别注意描写生活在英国社会底层的“小人物”的生活遭遇，深刻地反映了当时英国复杂的社会现实，为英国批判现实主义文学的开拓和发展作出了卓越的贡献。在艺术上，他以妙趣横生的幽默笔触、细致入微的心理分析，以及现实主义描写与浪漫主义气氛的有机结合著称。凭借着勤奋与天赋，狄更斯一生创作了一大批经典著作，至今依然盛行，对英国文学发展起到了深远的影响。主要作品有《大卫•科波菲尔》《雾都孤儿》《远大前程》《艰难时世》《双城记》等。
Charles Dickens(1812–70) had a happy childhood until age twelve when, due to his father’s confinement in debtors’ prison, he was forced to leave school to work in a factory. He taught himself shorthand and worked as a parliamentary reporter until his writing career took off with the publication ofSketches by Boz(1836) andThe Pickwick Papers(1837). As a novelist and magazine editor, Dickens had a long run of serialized success, includingOliver Twist(1838),David Copperfield(1850),A Tale of Two Cities(1859), andGreat Expectations(1861). In later years, ill health slowed him down, but he continued his popular dramatic readings from his fiction to an adoring public, which included Queen Victoria. At his death,The Mystery of Edwin Droodremained unfinished.
Frederick Busch(1941–2006) was the author of eighteen works of fiction, includingClosing Arguments,Girls, andThe Mutual Friend, a novel about Charles Dickens. The winner of numerous awards, he was the Fairchild Professor of Literature at Colgate University.
Jane Smileyis an American novelist. In addition to her many novels (includingTen Days in the Hills,Horse Heaven, andA Thousand Acres), she wrote a short biography of Charles Dickens for the Penguin Lives series (2001).