Gradgrind ""Gradgrind, a character in "Hard Times," who weighs and measures everything by a hard and fast rule and makes no allowances. "" (from the Gurenberg Project's version). Gradgrind Mr Thomas Gradgrind is the notorious school board Superintendent in Dickens's novel "Hard Times" who is dedicated to the pursuit of profitable enterprise. His name is now used generically to refer to someone who is hard and only concerned with cold facts and numbers. In the story, the man himself he was the father of five children, naming them after prominent utilitarians such as Robert Malthus. He also ran a model school
Dickens and Little Nell (Elwell) Dickens and Little Nell (Elwell) Dickens and Little Nell is a bronze sculpture by Francis Edwin Elwell that stands in Clark Park in the Spruce Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia. The sculpture depicts the 19th-century British author Charles Dickens and Nell Trent, a character from his 1840-41 novel "The Old Curiosity Shop". The grouping was one of the most celebrated American sculptural works of the late 19th century. It is one of just two known statues of Dickens, who said he wanted no such representations. The sculpture was commissioned in 1890 by "Washington Post" founder Stilson Hutchins, who wanted it placed