Gradgrind 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 where young pupils were treated as machines pitchers which were to be filled to the brim with facts. This satirised Scottish philosopher James Mill who attempted to
Charles Dickens Jr. London. His publications include: He also wrote the introductions to many posthumous reprints of his father's books, such as "Barnaby Rudge", "Oliver Twist", "Bleak House", and "Little Dorrit", providing biographical and bibliographical insights. His "Reminiscences of My Father" was published posthumously in 1934. "Dickens's Dictionary of London: An Unconventional Handbook" is the main book of Charles Dickens Jr. It was first published in London in 1879, by "Charles Dickens and Evans" (Dickens Jr. and his father-in-law, publisher Frederick Evans). The book was then updated and reprinted every year until the author's death, from 1880 (second year) to the final 1896–1897