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Date added: 1.3.2015
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Like ‘My Son, My Son’ and ‘Fame is the Spur’, HARD FACTS opens in Manchester, and, with an the exception of an excursion into Sussex, most of the action takes place in that northerm English city where Howard Spring spent so many years as a writer onMoreLike ‘My Son, My Son’ and ‘Fame is the Spur’, HARD FACTS opens in Manchester, and, with an the exception of an excursion into Sussex, most of the action takes place in that northerm English city where Howard Spring spent so many years as a writer on the old Manchester Guardian.. We are introduced to a young and ambitious printer, Daniel Dunkerley, who sees a fortune in exploiting the readership potential of the introduction of council schools and the free education system that arrived in the late 19th century, and he launches the cheap weekly paper called Hard Facts. We see the paper from humble beginnings to its rise to immense popularity, which promises riches and success to all who are involved. These include Alec Dillworth, a slum boy who has been essentially self-taught and rises to become the paper’s editor. Alex is a remarkable, complex character. Through Alex we meet his beautiful but tragic sister Elsie- while the romantic backbone to the novel is the love affair between Elsie and a young curate called Theodore Crystal –a poignant and unfortunate collision of lives that is complicated by the fact that Lady Pinson, Crystal’s wealthy patroness, is herself in love with him. This is a delightful book.KF Hard Facts by Howard Spring
