Almost ready!
In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.
Log in Create account
Shop small, give big!
With credit bundles, you choose the number of credits and your recipient picks their audiobooks—all in support of local bookstores.
Start gifting
Limited-time offer
Get two free audiobooks!
Now’s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new one credit per month membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, we’ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.
Sign up todayHard Times - Abridged
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn morePenguin Classics presents Hard Times, Charles Dickens's stark exposé of capitalist exploitation during the industrial revolution, now adapted for downloadable audiobook. Read by the actor Michael Pennington.
Coketown is dominated by the figure of Mr Thomas Gradgrind, school headmaster and model of Utilitarian success. Feeding both his pupils and family with facts, he bans fancy and wonder from any young minds. As a consequence his obedient daughter Louisa marries the loveless businessman and 'bully of humanity' Mr Bounderby, and his son Tom rebels to become embroiled in gambling and robbery. And, as their fortunes cross with those of free-spirited circus girl Sissy Jupe and victimized weaver Stephen Blackpool, Gradgrind is eventually forced to recognize the value of the human heart in an age of materialism and machinery.
Part of a series of abridged, vintage recordings taken from the Penguin Archives.
Affordable, collectable, quality productions - perfect for on-the-go listening.
Charles Dickens (1812-70) was a political reporter and journalist before establishing his reputation as a novelist with The Pickwick Papers (1836-7). His novels captured and held the public imagination over a period of more than thirty years.
Give audiobooks, support local bookstores!
Libro.fm for Business
Start a membership, get two free audiobooks