SOURCE: "Dickens's Shadow Show," in The Dickensian, Vol. XXXIX, No. 268, Autumn, 1943, pp. 187-91.

In the essay below, Harrison profiles the characters in Hard Times, each of whom is "the ghost of some greater creation," appearing in a "great book" which is "no less a piece of artistry than Copperfield."

I

In the good old days of my Victorian childhood there were two forms of entertainment, forerunners of the cinema, which have dwelt in my memory.

The first was the "Penny Reading," when the Vicar read to a (more or less) enthralled audience some work of (also more or less) merit and interest. How this species of enjoyment was developed and transcended by Charles Dickens everyone knows.

The Shadow Show was the other diversion. The performers, themselves unseen, were behind a white sheet and between it and a powerful light, so that their shadows were cast upon the screen...