In my thesis I would like to draw attention to certain facts concerning, primarily, the literary reception of Hard Times, expounding and – with due discretion – commenting on the views upheld by different literary critics and aesthetes in the past one and a half centuries. The guiding principle throughout my work is, on the one hand, to introduce various critics alluding to a certain extent to their performed professional role in the literary world, on the other hand, to point out those specific observations, with which they contributed to the comprehensive interpretation of Hard Times. In order to understand, among other things, why literary critics of the 21st century regard Hard Times (and, at the same times, Dickens) the way they virtually do, I have chosen to present the views of the critics in my thesis in a chronological order.