{"product_id":"sydney-smith-book-peter-virgin-9780002158909","title":"Sydney Smith","description":"A clergyman, Sydney Smith founded the \"Edinburgh Review\", the first of the major 19th-century periodicals; the most famous diner-out of his day, he campaigned passionately against many forms of social injustice: a Whig for most of his career, he did a \"volte face\" in his sixties, his works beginning to win the applause of the Tories. Unrivalled among his contemporaries for his conversational wit, he was nevertheless a fine letter-writer, revealing to his numerous correspondents a nature that was sensible and sensitive. His writings cannot be pigeon-holed. When inveighing against the burden of taxes, he is close to Cobbett; some of his witticisms anticipate the distinctive humour of Oscar Wilde; and his private melancholy echoes remarks found in Dr Johnson's journals. It was Sydney's achievement to be both serious and humorous, and he was the inventor of Nonsense - the style of burlesque and parody later developed by Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll - as well as a leading social commentator. This is abiography.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49520579019025,"sku":"GOR002804037","price":12.69,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49648324837649,"sku":"GOR005251631","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52108432507153,"sku":"GOR006893061","price":10.39,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0002158906.jpg?v=1751432735","url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/products\/sydney-smith-book-peter-virgin-9780002158909","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}