{"product_id":"2026100009106-secondhand-power-without-glory","title":"Power Without Glory","description":"\u003cp\u003eEdition: 1st ed.,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good\u003cbr\u003eJacket: No dust jacket - some marks on spine and corners\u003cbr\u003ePages: Yellowed\u003cbr\u003eCondition remarks: Includes list of characters and their real names. Minor stains on boards; light bumping on corners. Binding slightly shaky. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOne of the most controversial and consequential novels in Australian literary history, Power Without Glory chronicles the ruthless rise of John West, a fictional titan whose iron grip on Melbourne's political and criminal underworld mirrors the real-life ascent of gambling magnate John Wren. Published originally in 1950 under the pseudonym Ross Franklyn, Frank J. Hardy's monumental three-part saga traces West's journey from the back-street betting shops of working-class Collingwood to the corridors of federal power — a journey paved with corruption, intimidation, and moral compromise on an epic scale.\n\nHardy's unflinching, documentary-style prose reads like a prosecutorial brief against the entanglement of money and political power in twentieth-century Australia, drawing on meticulous research and Hardy's own experience as a committed socialist journalist. The novel's publication triggered a criminal libel trial against the author — itself a remarkable chapter in Australian legal and cultural history — and cemented the work's status as a landmark of social realism in the antipodean literary canon. Power Without Glory remains a towering indictment of unchecked ambition, asking its reader a question that still resonates: at what price does power come, and who truly pays it?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49309673193691,"sku":"2026100009106-SECONDHAND","price":85.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/d9c0fe6d-8679-447b-bbd8-675efef6156f.png?v=1789455067","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026100009106-secondhand-power-without-glory","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}