{"product_id":"9781853262326-hard-times","title":"Hard Times","description":"\u003cmeta content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\" http-equiv=\"Content-Type\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eSet in the imaginary mid-Victorian Northern industrial town of Coketown with its blackened factories, downtrodden workers and polluted environment, which is the the soulless domain of the strict utilitarian Thomas Gradgrind and the heartless factory owner Josiah Bounderby.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIntroduction and Notes by Dinny Thorold, University of Westminster.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIllustrated by F. Walker and Maurice Greiffenhagen.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUnusually for Dickens, \u003cem\u003eHard Times\u003c\/em\u003e 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\n\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\n\u003cp\u003eMacaulay attacked \u003cem\u003eHard Times\u003c\/em\u003e 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\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rarewaves","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56450864185718,"sku":"9781853262326","price":4.55,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0092\/7504\/8033\/files\/stand_33672909.jpg?v=1760454101","url":"https:\/\/www.rarewaves.com\/products\/9781853262326-hard-times","provider":"Rarewaves.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}