{"product_id":"9781853262326","title":"Hard Times","description":"\u003ch3\u003eAuthor:  Dickens, Charles, Thorold, Dinny (University of Westminster), Walker, F., Greiffenhagen, Maurice, Ca \u003c\/h3\u003e\u003ch4\u003eClassic fiction (pre c 1945)\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003ch5\u003ePublished on 5 January 1995 by Wordsworth Editions Ltd in the United Kingdom as part of 'the Wordsworth Classics' series.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePaperback | 272 pages\u003cbr\u003e197 x 126 x 15 | 178g\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/h5\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIntroduction and Notes by Dinny Thorold, University of Westminster.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIllustrated by F. Walker and Maurice Greiffenhagen.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUnusually for Dickens, Hard Times is set, not in London, but in the imaginary mid-Victorian Northern industrial town of Coketown with its blackened factories, downtrodden workers and polluted environment. This is the soulless domain of the strict utilitarian Thomas Gradgrind and the heartless factory owner Josiah Bounderby.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHowever human joy is not excluded thanks to 'Mr Sleary's Horse-Riding' circus, a gin-soaked and hilarious troupe of open-hearted and affectionate people who act as an antidote to all the drudgery and misery endured by the ordinary citizens of Coketown.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMacaulay attacked Hard Times for its 'sullen socialism', but 20th-century critics such as George Bernard Shaw and F.R. Leavis have praised this book in the highest terms, while readers the world over have found inspiration and enjoyment from what is both Dickens' shortest completed novel and also one of his important statements on Victorian society.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"HUNTS BOOKSHOP LTD","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":39941533696187,"sku":"9781853262326","price":3.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0514\/8635\/9739\/files\/9781853262326.jpg?v=1713559259","url":"https:\/\/huntsbookshop.live\/products\/9781853262326","provider":"Hunt's Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}