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Hard Times – For These Times (commonly known as Hard Times) is the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The book appraises English society and is aimed at highlighting the social and economic pressures of the times.

[Book I: Sowing]

Mr. Gradgrind, whose voice is "dictatorial", opens the novel by stating "Now, what I want is facts" at his school in Coketown. He is a man of "facts and calculations." He interrogates one of his pupils, Sissy, whose father is involved with the circus, the members of which are "Fancy" in comparison to Gradgrind's espousal of "Fact." Since her father rides and tends to horses, Gradgrind demands from Sissy the definition of 'horse'. She is rebuffed for not being able to define a horse factually; her classmate Bitzer does, however, provide a zoological profile and factual definition. Sissy does not learn easily, and is censured for suggesting that she would carpet a floor with pictures of flowers: "So you would carpet your room – or your husband's room, if you were a grown woman, and had a husband – with representations of flowers, would you? Why would you?" She is taught to disregard Fancy altogether. It is Fancy vs. Fact.

Louisa and Thomas, two of Mr. Gradgrind's children, pay a visit after school to the touring circus run by Mr. Sleary, only to meet their father, who is disconcerted by their trip since he believes the circus to be the bastion of Fancy and conceit. With their father, Louisa and Tom trudge off in a despondent mood. Mr. Gradgrind has three younger children: Adam Smith, (after the famous theorist of laissez-faire policy), Malthus (after Rev. Thomas Malthus, who wrote An Essay on the Principle of Population, warning of the dangers of future overpopulation), and Jane.

Josiah Bounderby, "a man perfectly devoid of sentiment", is revealed as Gradgrind's boss. Bounderby is a manufacturer and mill owner who is affluent as a result of his enterprise and capital. Bounderby is what one might call a "self-made man" who has risen from the gutter. He is not averse to giving dramatic summaries of his childhood, which terrify Mr. Gradgrind's wife – she is often rendered insensate by these horrific stories. He is described in an acerbic manner as being "the Bully of Humility."

Mr. Gradgrind and Bounderby visit the public-house where Sissy resides to inform her that she cannot attend the school any more due to the risk of her ideas propagating in the class. Sissy meets the two collaborators, informing them her father has abandoned her not out of malice, but out of desire for Sissy to lead a better life without him. This was the reasoning behind him enlisting her at Gradgrind's school and Gradgrind is outraged at this desertion. At this point members of the circus appear, fronted by their manager, Mr. Sleary. Mr. Gradgrind gives Sissy a choice: either to return to the circus and forfeit her education, or to continue her education and never to return to the circus. Sleary and Gradgrind both have their say on the matter, and at the behest of Josephine Sleary she decides to leave the circus and bid all the close friends she had formed farewell, hoping she may one day be re-united with her father.

Back at the Gradgrind house, Tom and Louisa sit down and discuss their feelings, however repressed they seem to be. Tom, already at this present stage of education, finds himself in a state of dissatisfaction, and Louisa also expresses her discontent at her childhood while staring into the fire. Louisa's ability to wonder, however, has not been entirely extinguished by her rigorous education based on Fact.

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