Hard Times: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Hard Times, credited to Charles Dickens, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

Hard Times, the shortest of Dickens’s full-length novels, is set in the fictitious Victorian-England city of Coketown, where facts are the rule and all fancy is to be stamped out. The plot centers around the men and women of the town, some of whom are beaten down by the city’s utilitarian ideals and some of whom manage to rise above it. The novel was written in 1854 and was a scathing attack on then-current ideas of utilitarianism, which Dickens viewed as a selfish and at times oppressive philosophy. Perhaps the novel’s best features are its clever, ironic narration and the larger-than-life characters that push the plot forward, such as the upper-class banker and hypocritical braggart, Josiah Bounderby, and the fact-driven schoolmaster, Thomas Gradgrind. (Summary by Rosalind Wills)

Recording facts

• Recording title: Hard Times
• Author credits: Charles Dickens
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 22
• Listed recording duration: 10:54:45

Catalogue topics

• charles dickens
• coketown
• hard times
• utilitarianism
• social critique

Track guide

1. 01 Book 1, Chapters 1-3 — 23:50
2. 02 Book 1, Chapters 4 and 5 — 31:28
3. 03 Book 1, Chapter 6 — 25:29
4. 04 Book 1, Chapters 7-8 — 26:24
5. 05 Book 1, Chapters 9-10 — 35:07
6. 06 Book 1, Chapters 11-12 — 25:00
7. 07 Book 1, Chapters 13-14 — 33:46
8. 08 Book 1, Chapters 15-16 — 35:47
9. 09 Book 2, Chapter 1 — 31:42
10. 10 Book 2, Chapters 2-3 — 27:11
11. 11 Book 2, Chapters 4-5 — 41:06
12. 12 Book 2, Chapter 6 — 31:30
13. 13 Book 2, Chapter 7 — 29:23
14. 14 Book 2, Chapter 8 — 26:56
15. 15 Book 2, Chapters 9-10 — 30:53
16. 16 Book 2, Chapters 11-12 — 31:00
17. 17 Book 3, Chapters 1-2 — 35:28
18. 18 Book 3, Chapters 3-4 — 39:41
19. 19 Book 3, Chapter 5 — 21:30
20. 20 Book 3, Chapter 6 — 21:37
21. 21 Book 3, Chapter 7 — 24:18
22. 22 Book 3, Chapters 8-9 — 25:46

Listen to this recording

Open the complete recording and player on Internet Archive. The player includes the full track list and available download formats.

Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.