Teaching charles Dickens's Hard Times within its original publication context in Household Words (serialized from 1 April to 12 August 1854) helps students think about the novel in more complex ways. It allows them to understand the Victorian literary marketplace and to engage in higher-level reading practices by analyzing the periodical form's ‘seemingly radical incoherence’ that ‘coexists with order’. This periodicals-centered approach also provides students with a richer sense of literature's ability to intervene in social and political debates. in particular, considering the periodical context of Hard Times helps students arrive at more satisfying answers to critical questions such as those posed by the call to reform at the novel's end.

At the conclusion of Hard Times, Charles Dickens entreats his readers to recognize and act on their power to change society: ‘Dear Reader!’ Dickens exclaims, ‘it rests with you and me, whether … similar things shall be or not’. This appeal to action has troubled readers at least since George Gissing claimed that the novel was too exaggerated to be an effective protest against industrialism. In fact, on the basis of this entreaty, Nicholas Coles argues that