{"product_id":"cruelty-and-laughter-simon-dickie-9780226142548","title":"Cruelty and Laughter: Forgotten Comic Literature and the Unsentimental Eighteenth Century","description":"\u003cp\u003eEighteenth-century British culture is often seen as polite and sentimental--the creation of an emerging middle class. Simon Dickie disputes these assumptions in \u003ci\u003eCruelty and Laughter\u003c\/i\u003e, a wildly enjoyable but shocking plunge into the forgotten comic literature of the age. Beneath the surface of Enlightenment civility, Dickie uncovers a rich vein of cruel humor that forces us to recognize just how slowly ordinary human sufferings became worthy of sympathy.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDelving into an enormous archive of comic novels, jestbooks, farces, variety shows, and cartoons, Dickie finds a vast repository of jokes about cripples, blind men, rape, and wife-beating. Epigrams about syphilis and scurvy sit alongside one-act comedies about hunchbacks in love. He shows us that everyone--rich and poor, women as well as men--laughed along. In the process, Dickie also expands our understanding of many of the century's major authors, including Samuel Richardson, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Tobias Smollett, Frances Burney, and Jane Austen. He devotes particular attention to Henry Fielding's \u003ci\u003eJoseph Andrews\u003c\/i\u003e, a novel that reflects repeatedly on the limits of compassion and the ethical problems of laughter. \u003ci\u003eCruelty and Laughter\u003c\/i\u003e is an engaging, far-reaching study of the other side of culture in eighteenth-century Britain.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Simon Dickie\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 022614254X\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780226142548\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Chicago Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 04\/14\/2014\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 382\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.13lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.12h x 6.09w x 0.85d","brand":"Simon Dickie","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":44056652677375,"sku":"9780226142548","price":43.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_7c3c5e21-ed2f-45dd-b7a1-9042e41e6553.jpg?v=1685042514","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/cruelty-and-laughter-simon-dickie-9780226142548","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}