Hard Cash

Hard Cash, A Matter-of-Fact Romance is an 1863 novel by Charles Reade. The novel is about the poor treatment of patients in private insane asylums, and was part of Reade's drive to reform and improve those institutions. Background It was originally serialised under the title Very Hard Cash in Charles Dickens' All the Year Round from 28 March to 26 December 1863, but the magazine's family readers blanched at Reade's strong attacks on asylums, so it did not perform well and actually depressed sales of the periodical. Dickens appended a note to the last instalment noting that the opinions of the work should be attributed to the author, not the periodical. Reade's work did better when released (with some reordering and amendment of the text, less concerned with creating instalment cliffhangers) as Hard Cash in three-volume book form by Sampson Low in December 1863. Reade sought £3,000 for the publishing rights, later accepted £2,250 for a limited term of years, but eventually only sold it via commissions from the publisher. Publisher Edward Marston later commented that "Reade was an excellent man of business, and was very careful of the commodity which furnished the title of his book." In the United States, the book was serialised in Harper's Weekly, and then published in January 1864 by Harper & Brothers without the change in title.