Household Words
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Household Words was an English weekly magazine edited by Charles Dickens in the 1850s. It took its name from the line in Shakespeare's Henry V: "Familiar in his mouth as household words."
Front cover of Vol. II, 28 September 1850– 22 March 1851
Dickens Gurney head
Hard Times (novel)
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Hard Times: For These Times is the tenth novel by English author Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The book surveys English society and satirises its social and economic conditions.
Household Words
…and, in spite of its regularly featuring an "advertiser", the paper was unillustrated. To boost slumping sales Dickens serialised his own novel, Hard Times, in weekly parts between 1 April and 12 August 1854. It had the desired effect, more than doubling the journal's circulation and encouraging the author…
Title page of the serial in Household Words, April 1854
Gradgrind apprehends Louisa and Tom, his two eldest children, caught peeping at the circus.
George Bernard Shaw was critical of the book's message.