Hard Times: For These Times (commonly known as Hard Times) is the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The book surveys English society and satirises the social and economic conditions of the era. Hard Times is unusual in several ways. It is by far the shortest of Dickens's novels, barely a quarter of the length of those written immediately before and after it. Also, unlike all but one of his other novels, Hard Times has neither a preface nor illustrations. Moreover, it is his only novel not to have scenes set in London. Instead the story is set in the fictitious Victorian industrial Coketown, a generic Northern English mill-town, in some ways similar to Manchester, though smaller. Coketown may be partially based on 19th-century Preston. One of Dickens's reasons for writing Hard Times was that sales of his weekly periodical Household Words were low, and it was hoped the novel's publication in instalments would boost circulation – as indeed proved to be the case. Since publication it has received a mixed response from critics. Critics such as George Bernard Shaw and Thomas Macaulay have mainly focused on Dickens's treatment of trade unions and his post-Industrial Revolution pessimism regarding the divide between capitalist mill owners and undervalued workers during the Victorian era. F. R. Leavis, a great admirer of the book, included it – but not Dickens's work as a whole – as part of his Great Tradition of English novels. Publication The novel was published as a serial in Dickens's weekly publication, Household Words. Sales were highly responsive and encouraging for Dickens who remarked that he was "Three parts mad, and the fourth delirious, with perpetual rushing at Hard Times". The novel was serialised, in twenty weekly parts, between 1 April and 12 August 1854. It sold well, and a complete volume was published in August, totalling 110,000 words. Another related novel, North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, was also published in this magazine. Synopsis The novel follows a classical tripartite structure, and the titles of each book are related to Galatians 6:7, "For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Book I is entitled "Sowing", Book II is entitled "Reaping", and the third is "Garnering." Book I: Sowing Superintendent Mr. Gradgrind opens the novel at his school in Coketown stating, "Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts",