{"product_id":"2026200016448-secondhand-the-citadel","title":"The Citadel","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good\u003cbr\u003eJacket: N\/A\u003cbr\u003ePages: Tanning and foxing\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the grimy coal-mining valleys of Wales and the glittering consulting rooms of London, a young Scottish doctor wages a war against his own conscience. The Citadel chronicles the rise and moral corruption of Andrew Manson, an idealistic physician who arrives in a Welsh mining town burning with ambition and a fierce dedication to honest medicine, only to find himself seduced by wealth, social prestige, and the hollow rewards of a fashionable London practice. A. J. Cronin draws on his own experiences as a medical professional to construct a searing indictment of the British medical establishment, portraying with unflinching clarity how institutional greed and personal vanity can erode a man's most deeply held principles.\n\nCronin's prose is muscular and direct, carrying the reader through Andrew's journey with an urgency that never relents, and his vivid characterisations — from the stoic mining communities of Drineffy to the pampered hypochondriacs of Mayfair — paint a panoramic portrait of interwar British society. Published in 1937, the novel caused a sensation and is widely credited as a key influence on the political will that created Britain's National Health Service. Thematically rich and morally complex, it stands as one of the great social novels of the twentieth century — and the question it poses, of whether integrity can survive ambition, remains as urgent today as ever.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49336818761947,"sku":"2026200016448-SECONDHAND","price":12.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/83f044da-2e23-4ca7-81c2-adad715b1e5d.png?v=1789958828","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026200016448-secondhand-the-citadel","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}