Set in Coketown, a fictional industrial town in the north of England, Hard Times appraises English society and is aimed at highlighting the social and economic pressures of the times. It was born of Dickens' indignation at the crushing conditions of the industrial age. Through Dickens we see a satiric vision of society tempered equally by righteous anger and compassionate humanity. As the shortest of Dickens's novels, Hard Times is considered his most pointed and impassioned satire of social injustice.