{"product_id":"charles-dickens-hard-times-9780307947208","title":"Hard Times","description":"The shortest of Charles Dickens's novels, Hard Times is also his most pointed and impassioned satire of social injustice. Set in Coketown, a fictional industrial town in the north of England, Hard Times was born of its author's indignation at the soul-crushing conditions of the industrial age, and yet it vibrantly transcends the stock situations and polemical weaknesses typical of social protest fiction of the time. The indelible characters-Mr. Gradgrind, whose utilitarian educational philosophy emotionally cripples his own children; the hypocritical factory owner Josiah Bounderby; Stephen Blackpool, an honest worker wrongly accused of a crime; and Sissy Jupe, a circus performer whose father abandons her to what he hopes is a better life-all come alive in classic Dickensian fashion, and contribute to a satiric vision of society tempered equally by righteous anger and compassionate humanity.","brand":"Random House","offers":[{"title":"Used - good","offer_id":53300607484246,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0925\/5829\/5382\/files\/product_image_9780307947208_1_60770aba-ffaf-4e4e-a50d-53fdf694c860.jpg?v=1781230437","url":"https:\/\/www.momoxbooks.com\/products\/charles-dickens-hard-times-9780307947208","provider":"momoxbooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}