Just for curiousity's sake, Kevin, I have been told that Dickens wrote his stories as serial episodes printed in newspapers and that they only became published as books at a later date. That was the reason that (for instance) Martin Chuzzlewit goes incredibly slowly (dragging out the number of episodes) until the last chapter or two (when the paper told him they wouldn't pay for more) and suddenly he had to resolve all plot lines.
If Hard Times followed that format, I wonder how the date of the published novel would relate to the (earlier) serialisation.
Quack!
Gtd.