{"product_id":"washington-square-wordsworth-classics","title":"Washington Square (Wordsworth Classics)","description":"\u003cp\u003eIntroduction and Notes by Ian F.A. Bell. Professor of English Literature. University of Keele. Washington Square marks the culmination of Jamess apprentice period as a novelist. With sharply focused attention upon just four principal characters, James provides an acute analysis of middleclass manners and behaviour in the New York of the 1870s, a period of great change in the life of the city. This change is explored through the device of setting the novels action during the 1840s, similarly a period of considerable turbulence as the United States experienced the onset of rapid commercial and industrial expansion. Through the relationships between Austin Sloper, a celebrated physician, and his sister Lavinia Penniman, his daughter Catherine, and Catherines suitor, Morris Townsend, James observes the contemporary scene as a site of competing styles and performances where authentic expression cannot be articulated or is subject to suppression.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Wordsworth Editions","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45900834111686,"sku":"DADAX1840224274","price":14.58,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0695\/9389\/1014\/files\/71dKlapcBML.jpg?v=1780318370","url":"https:\/\/ergodemedia.com\/products\/washington-square-wordsworth-classics","provider":"Ergodemedia","version":"1.0","type":"link"}