{"product_id":"2026100012205-secondhand-lost-empires","title":"Lost Empires","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good\u003cbr\u003eJacket: No dust jacket - cloth\/board in good condition\u003cbr\u003ePages: Tanning and foxing\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSet against the smoky gaslit world of Edwardian music halls in the final months before the First World War, Lost Empires chronicles the coming-of-age of Richard Herncastle, a young man who joins his uncle Nick's touring variety act as a scenic artist and is quickly drawn into a vivid, twilight world of illusionists, acrobats, chorus girls, and shadowy backstage intrigue. J.B. Priestley renders this vanishing theatrical landscape with remarkable texture and warmth, capturing a Britain on the cusp of catastrophic change — innocent, exuberant, and utterly unaware of the darkness gathering on the horizon.\n\nPriestley, one of the great chroniclers of English life, brings his trademark social conscience and nostalgic precision to bear in this richly atmospheric novel, weaving personal drama with a profound meditation on memory, loss, and the fragility of a world about to be swept away. Originally published in 1965 and illustrated here with original frontispieces by Daniel Bréffort for this Heron Books distributed edition, the novel stands as one of Priestley's most accomplished works of fiction. Readers who finish the final page will find themselves haunted by the echo of a curtain falling on an age that can never return.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51022636712155,"sku":"2026100012205-SECONDHAND","price":12.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/a44dafa5-8724-4732-adad-8960f64bd688.png?v=1793665345","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026100012205-secondhand-lost-empires","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}