wig,
Absolutely! I am sitting here with my morning coffee thinking about the trillion things on my to-do list today and I saw your post. It made my day!

First and foremost, he was one of the mot prolific writers of the Victorian Age but was never as popular as Dickens or Verne.

His most well-known work is New Grub Street. This book is still in print but not even available in my local Border's or B&N. Amazon has it, as do other online bookstores.

My favorites by Gissing are New Grub Street, the Unclassed, The Odd Women and Sleeping Fires. I have not read all of them. Yet.

Please let me know your opinion of Gissing. I think he's great. He does not write about upper classes and balls and parties and beaus. Rather, he writes about the lower classes in London, those struggling to get by. He is, as I often say, the original "writer in the garret with a crust of a day old loaf and watered down ink."

PAM

Also, almost all of his works are now available free online. I do not know if they can be downloaded because I do not own such devices. But I'll post the link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Gissing in Cyberspace - e-texts and more

And I've just bought a Sony Reader! OK - New Grub Street first.

There is an Antique book dealer in Dorking, Surrey (Chris Kohler) who specialises in George Gissing for those without an e-reader.

I got New Grub Street at my public library, but it was the only Gissing they had. I expect more would be available through inter-library loan if yours would have access to a good university library.

I read your post too TBDogs, and put put Gissing on my list of books to read. I have to see if our library carries any of his works.
Just to let you know, online-literature.com seems to have a lot of his books and short stories available to read online for free.
CMK

Found this intriguing thread in archives. Been wanting to read a book by him -- But there never seems to be a clear description of any of them -- What's it about / What are the characters like / What time period does it take place in. Just general sort of praise. Can anyone here be more particular?

Thanks.

Hello LauraMarie,

George Gissing writes much like Dickens. He writes about the poor of London and was very much noted for his realism. He was one of the "starving writers in the garrett" so he lived amongst those who peopled his books. He wrote in the late Victorian Era. He died in 1903 in France. He is also the author of a much-praised biography of Charles Dickens.. but many who have read both Dickens and Gissing have said that he "out-Dickens Charles". He is wonderful at creating three-dimensional characters that jump from the book into life. I find that his realistic conversations make me feel like I am a fly on the wall. Since this post originally came up three years ago, I have read more of Gissing's works. But I still have to say that New Grub Street is my favorite. For a first Gissing, I would suggest New Grub Street or The Odd Women.

New Grub Street is about two friends who want to be writers. Both are poor. Both want to succeed. One of them will do anything to earn money and become suggessful. The other refuses to force his creativity or to sacrifice his principles. Grub Street was (is?) a street in London where magazine and book publishers were located in the Victorian Era.

The Odd Women is about a few friends who decide to remain single women in 1890's London. I must say that considering the author is a man, this book captures many of the worries and hurdles of being female in a male-dominated society.

I copied this next portion:
Early life
Gissing was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, to lower-middle class parents. A brilliant student, he won a scholarship to Owens College, the present day University of Manchester. He excelled at university, winning many coveted prizes, including the Shakespeare prize in 1875, but his academic career ended in disgrace when he fell in love with a young prostitute, Marianne Helen Harrison. In an attempt to keep her from the streets he gave her money, and when his own funds ran short he began to steal from his fellow students. Eventually he was caught, expelled from the university, and prosecuted for theft; he was sentenced to one month's hard labour in prison.
In October 1876, thanks largely to a few local sympathisers, he was shipped off to the United States, where, when close to starvation, he managed to earn a precarious living by writing short stories for the Chicago Tribune.
[edit] Literary career
On returning to England in the autumn of 1877, Gissing married Marianne, and settled down in London to write novels. His first book, Workers in the Dawn, was published at his own expense in 1880; it was a complete failure, and Gissing took up private tutoring to support himself and his wife, who by now had become an alcoholic. In 1883 the couple separated, but he gave her a weekly income on what little money he had until her alcohol related death in 1888.
In 1884 his second novel, The Unclassed, which saw a marked improvement in style and characterisation,...

P.S.
The website posted above... Gissing in Cyberspace... is still the best one out there about "my" George. All of the works are on there in etext form and may be downloaded to an e-reader device.
PAM

I am reading "New Grub Street" at present, and finding it amazing. For a book written in 1891, I surprised at how "modern" it seems, both with themes and terminology. I have not looked up Gissing, but I have the impression that his novel was heartfelt, and that it is in part the story of his own struggles with writing and publishing.

The novel, in some of its themes, reminds me both of some of Edith Wharton's work (social class depictions) and of Knut Hamsun's "Hunger", which is OP, (sufferings of poverty).

Wood,
I agree with you. I always thought that Gissing was part Milvain and part Reardon, that he simply split his personality into the two characters. Each time I read it, I am astonished anew. And cannot possibly understand why Gissing was not more popular in his day... unless, perhaps, those who had the money to buy books did not want to read about the realities of their society.
PAM

Pam perhaps you would enjoy the work of Pierre Coustillas who is a scholar that has devoted a lot of time to a Gissing biography. I understand there is more than one volume the first is on Amazon at $100 and he is said to be working on the next.