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A miser learns the true meaning of Christmas when three ghostly visitors review his past and foretell his future.

"Since its first publication thirty-five years ago, the Norton Critical Edition of Charles Dickens' Hard Times has been enthusiastically received as both a notable work of Dickens scholarship and a reliable text for the classroom. For this Third Edition, the editors, Fred Kaplan and Sylvere Monod, have re-edited the 1854 first edition text in light of scholarly findings made in the decade since the Second Edition was published. In addition, the annotations...

With their estate entangled in an interminable legal case, the young wards of the court Richard Carstone and Ada Clare are taken into the benevolent care of the kindly John Jarndyce. Ada's companion, the gentle and good-hearted Esther Summerson, is devoted to the old man and, although she loves another, becomes betrothed to him. But behind Esther's supposed orphan past lies a dark secret that leads tragically to deceit, blackmail and murder. And as...