George Gissing

"New Grub Street" is George Gissing's 1891 novel set in the writing circles of London in the 1880s. A place that became synonymous with the writing of hack literature, Grub Street is a street in London, England and represents the setting of the novel. It is here that talented and cerebral novelist Edwin Reardon and the semi-scrupulous Jasper Milvain attempt to pursue success, love, and-often above all else-money. As a realistic picture of the literary...

Denzil Quarrier, a successful, active man, becomes a candidate for Parliament, and, in the moment of triumph, is stricken by the treachery of his best friend, the meaningless treachery of a clever, bored man.

First published in 1903 and hugely popular at the time, 'The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft' by George Gissing is structured as a series of diary entries. The diary keeper is the fictional former writer Henry Ryecroft, now in his fifties. An unexpected inheritance has allowed him to enjoy a slow, solitary life in Devon, where he muses about art, nature, and society through his diary. Although this is a work of fiction, there are clear parallels...

Charles Dickens: A Critical Study was written in Siena, Italy in 1897 and first published by Blackie in the Victorian Era Series in February 1898. Any doubts that readers and critics harboured over the choice of Gissing as author were swept aside on the book's publication. It was hailed as a triumphant feat of original and incisive criticism allied to level-headed conclusions. Literature, the forerunner of the Times Literary Supplement, described...

Thyrza Trent, a young hat-trimmer, meets and falls in love with Walter Egremont, an Oxford-trained idealist who gives lectures on literature to workers. Trapped by birth and circumstance, Thyrza is attempting to escape her destiny in this tale of ambition, romance, betrayal and disillusionment.

Miriam Baske, a young widow, freed from the constraints of making a living, leaves behind the grey stone chapels and flinty hearts of Lancashire for the sun and artistic splendour of Italy. She meets a host of her countrymen vacationing and occupying themselves with travel, art, philosophy, romance, and improving their health.

The Town Traveller is one of Gissing's novels which earned him more income during his lifetime than most of his other novels. The story is full of life and descriptive detail. It revolves around life of town traveller Gammon, just the sort of quarter-educated that Gissing usually despises.

Eve's Ransom is the story of a mechanical draughtsman named Maurice Hilliard, who comes into some money, which enables him to live without working. As part of his resulting travels, he meets and falls in love with Eve Madeley, a book keeper.

Osmond Waymark, a struggling teacher answers a magazine advertisement, placed by Julian Casti, a half-Italian who had felt himself to be rejected by society. The two strike up a meaningful and deep friendship.

As he waited for his breakfast, never served to time, Mr. Lashmar drummed upon the window-pane, and seemed to watch a blackbird lunching with much gusto about the moist lawn of Alverholme Vicarage. But his gaze was absent and worried. The countenance of the reverend gentleman rarely wore any other expression, for he took to heart all human miseries and follies, and lived in a ceaseless mild indignation against the tenor of the age.