{"product_id":"hard-times-by-charles-dickens-author","title":"Hard Times by Charles Dickens","description":"\u003cdiv data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"container_16 clearfix\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"grid_16 product\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"productInfo\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"productContentWrap\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"productContent\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"description\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"productDescription\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eIntroduction and Notes by Dinny Thorold, University of Westminster. Illustrated by F. Walker and Maurice Greiffenhagen.\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\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. However 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.\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\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\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"productDescription\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"productDescription\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003ePublisher: Wordsworth Editions Ltd\u003cbr\u003eImprint: Wordsworth Editions Ltd\u003cbr\u003eEdition: New ed\u003cbr\u003eISBN:9781853262326\u003cbr\u003ePublished:5 Jan 1995\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Looking Glass Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42335023005852,"sku":"","price":3.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/5703\/3628\/products\/hard-times-by-charles-dickens-795935.jpg?v=1703859854","url":"https:\/\/classicliteraturebookshop.com\/products\/hard-times-by-charles-dickens-author","provider":"The Classic Literature Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}