Hard Times (novel) Gradgrind - a younger sister of Tom and Louisa Gradgrind who spends a lot of time with Sissy Jupe. She is cheerful, affectionate and despite looking similar to Louisa, in personality she is opposite. Dickens wished to educate readers about the working conditions of some of the factories in the industrial towns of Manchester, and Preston, to "strike the heaviest blow in my power", and as well to confront the assumption that prosperity runs parallel to morality. This notion he systematically deconstructed in through his portrayal of the moral monsters, Mr. Bounderby and James Harthouse. Dickens also believed in the
Cedric Charles Dickens Charles Dickens, he also worked to preserve the heritage of the George and Vulture in the City of London, which was frequently mentioned in "The Pickwick Papers", where Charles Dickens himself often drank, and which was threatened with demolition; and Gads Hill Place in Kent, Dicken's final home, becoming a governor of Gad's Hill School, which occupies the building today. In 2005 he appeared in the first episode of BBC Four's documentary series "Dickens in America" with Miriam Margolyes, during which he talked about what it was like growing up as a member of the Dickens family. Dickens suffered a