{"product_id":"arthur-and-george-9780224077033","title":"Arthur and George","description":"\u003cp\u003eShortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2005  Arthur and George grow up worlds and miles apart in late nineteenth-century Britain: Arthur in shabby-genteel Edinburgh  George in the vicarage of a small Staffordshire village. Arthur becomes a doctor  and then a writer; George a solicitor in Birmingham. Arthur is to become one of the most famous men of his age  George remains in hardworking obscurity. But as the new century begins  they are brought together by a sequence of events which made sensational headlines at the time as The Great Wyrley Outrages.  George Edjalis father is Indian  his mother Scottish. When the family begins to receive vicious anonymous letters  many about their son  they put it down to racial prejudice. They appeal to the police  to no less than the Chief Constable  but to their dismay he appears to suspect George of being the letters author. Then someone starts slashing horses and livestock. Again the police seem to suspect the shy  aloof Birmingham solicitor. He is arrested and  on the flimsiest evidence  sent to trial  found guilty and sentenced to seven years hard labour.  Arthur Conan Doyle  famous as the creator of the worlds greatest detective  is mourning his first wife (having been chastely in love for ten years with the woman who was to become his second) when he hears about the Edjali case. Incensed at this obvious miscarriage of justice  he is galvanised into trying to clear Georges name.  With a mixture of detailed research and vivid imagination  Julian Barnes brings to life not just this long-forgotten case  but the inner lives of these two very different men. The reader sees them both with stunning clarity  and almost inhabits them as they face the vicissitudes of their lives  whether in the dock hearing a verdict of guilty  or trying to live an honourable life while desperately in love with another woman. This is a novel in which the events of a hundred years ago constantly set off contemporary echoes  a novel about low crime and high spirituality  guilt and innocence  identity  nationality and race; about what we think  what we believe  and what we know. Julian Barnes has long been recognised as one of Britains most remarkable writers. While those already familiar with his work will enjoy its elegance  its wit  its profound wisdom about the human condition  Arthur \u0026amp; George will surely find him an entirely new audience.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67960961007669,"sku":"ByrdShop_0224077031","price":49.3,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780224077033.jpg?v=1794500482","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/arthur-and-george-9780224077033","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}