{"product_id":"9780141031729","title":"Red Classics Hard Times","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe shortest of Charles Dickens’s novels, \u003ci\u003eHard Times \u003c\/i\u003eis also his most pointed and impassioned satire of social injustice.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSet in Coketown, a fictional industrial town in the north of England, \u003ci\u003eHard Times\u003c\/i\u003e 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Penguin UK","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47022210711792,"sku":"9780141031729","price":11.03,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780141031729","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}