Hard Times (novel) Deb McAndrew and directed by Conrad Nelson. The novel has also been adapted twice as a mini-series for British television, once in 1977 with Patrick Allen as Gradgrind, Timothy West as Bounderby, Rosalie Crutchley as Mrs. Sparsit and Edward Fox as Harthouse, and again in 1994 with Bob Peck as Gradgrind, Alan Bates as Bounderby, Dilys Laye as Mrs. Sparsit, Bill Paterson as Stephen, Harriet Walter as Rachael and Richard E. Grant as Harthouse. Hard Times (novel) Hard Times – For These Times (commonly known as Hard Times) is the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The
Charles Dickens drowning in "The Old Curiosity Shop"), and made suggestions about plot and character. It was he who suggested that Charley Bates should be redeemed in "Oliver Twist". Dickens had not thought of killing Little Nell, and it was Forster who advised him to entertain this possibility as necessary to his conception of the heroine. Dickens's serialisation of his novels was not uncriticised by other authors. In Robert Louis Stevenson's novel "The Wrecker", there is a comment by Captain Nares, investigating an abandoned ship: "See! They were writing up the log," said Nares, pointing to the ink-bottle. "Caught napping, as usual.