{"product_id":"2940014706742","title":"A Thousand Deaths","description":"I had been in the water about an hour, and cold, exhausted, with a\u003cbr\u003eterrible cramp in my right calf, it seemed as though my hour had come.\u003cbr\u003eFruitlessly struggling against the strong ebb tide, I had beheld the\u003cbr\u003emaddening procession of the water-front lights slip by, but now I gave\u003cbr\u003eup attempting to breast the stream and contented myself with the bitter\u003cbr\u003ethoughts of a wasted career, now drawing to a close.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt had been my luck to come of good, English stock, but of parents whose\u003cbr\u003eaccount with the bankers far exceeded their knowledge of child-nature\u003cbr\u003eand the rearing of children. While born with a silver spoon in my mouth,\u003cbr\u003ethe blessed atmosphere of the home circle was to me unknown. My father,\u003cbr\u003ea very learned man and a celebrated antiquarian, gave no thought to his\u003cbr\u003efamily, being constantly lost in the abstractions of his study; while my\u003cbr\u003emother, noted far more for her good looks than her good sense, sated\u003cbr\u003eherself with the adulation of the society in which she was perpetually\u003cbr\u003eplunged. I went through the regular school and college routine of a boy\u003cbr\u003eof the English bourgeoisie, and as the years brought me increasing\u003cbr\u003estrength and passions, my parents suddenly became aware that I was\u003cbr\u003epossessed of an immortal soul, and endeavoured to draw the curb. But it\u003cbr\u003ewas too late; I perpetrated the wildest and most audacious folly, and\u003cbr\u003ewas disowned by my people, ostracised by the society I had so long\u003cbr\u003eoutraged, and with the thousand pounds my father gave me, with the\u003cbr\u003edeclaration that he would neither see me again nor give me more, I took\u003cbr\u003ea first-class passage to Australia.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSince then my life had been one long peregrination--from the Orient to\u003cbr\u003ethe Occident, from the Arctic to the Antarctic--to find myself at last,\u003cbr\u003ean able seaman at thirty, in the full vigour of my manhood, drowning in\u003cbr\u003eSan Francisco Bay because of a disastrously successful attempt to desert\u003cbr\u003emy ship.","brand":"Good Reading","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47080306311408,"sku":"2940014706742","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940014706742_p0.jpg?v=1763614077","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940014706742","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}