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Dickens wrote Hard Times as an attempt to increase sales of his flagging magazine and had to produce it in weekly instalments which probably explains why it's so bereft of inspiration and artistry. It's ironic that a novel lauding the importance of heart and imagination as guiding principles in social reform should have a mercantile consideration at root. Hard Times is a leaden rhetorical read. There's little subtlety in its sermonising. There's not even much of a story and what story there is doesn't always make sense. Most surprisingly of all it doesn't include a single memorable character. The characters are programmed automatons of the flimsy plot. Even the humour is relentlessly off key. The only positive note is his standard sentimentalised girl-woman only plays a minor role in this novel.

For me this joins A Tale of Two Cities and David Copperfield as duds in the Dickens' canon, though it doesn't possess the redeeming features those two novels possessed.