Hard times

Hard Times - a novel by Charles Dickens, an English writer who is regarded aby many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.

Published in 1854, the story concerns one Thomas Gradgrind, a "fanatic of the demonstrable fact," who raises his children, Tom and Louisa, in a stifling and arid atmosphere of grim practicality. Without a moral compass to guide them, the children sink into lives of desperation and despair.