Liverpool, England

Liverpool is the Hardy's hometown. It is also the place where Master Georgie feels he must leave to find satisfaction in his life. The story begins in Liverpool in 1846, when George finds his father dead in a whore's bed. Nine years earlier, Myrtle has been found next to a dead woman in an equally distasteful setting, somewhere in the city. The story takes place in the Victorian era, when social class and consciousness are very important. Pompey Jones and Myrtle come from the wrong side of the tracks, and fall into the lives of the respectable, upper-middle class Hardy family. It seems that the only thing Jones aspires to is to be accepted into the gentry class. He also never wants to have to beg on the streets of Liverpool, or anywhere else, again.

Myrtle is oblivious to this place. She seems to be indifferent to...