New Grub Street (Oxford World's Classics) [Paperback]

George Gissing (Author), John Goode (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 4, 1999 | Series: Oxford World's Classics

New Grub Street (1891), George Gissing's most highly regarded novel, is the story of men and women forced to make their living by writing. Their daily lives and broken dreams, made and marred by the rigors of urban life and the demands of the fledgling mass communications industry, are presented with vivid realism and unsentimental sympathy. Its telling juxtaposition of the writing careers of the clever and malicious Jaspar Milvain and the honest and struggling Edward Reardon quickly made New Grub Street into a classic work of late Victorian fiction.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'his naturalism has an excoriating veracity; relentless in its judgements but fine as well in its attention to detail ... I have never learnt so much from a novel about the actual day-to-day life texture of life in late 19th-century London.' Janet Daley, The Times

About the Author

John Goode is at Keele University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 576 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (February 4, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0192836587
• ISBN-13: 978-0192836588
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,127,358 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sour, Dour, and Petty ..., January 27, 2011

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Giordano Bruno - See all my reviews
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This review is from: New Grub Street (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)

... might be the names of partners in an accountancy firm in a Dickens novel, but in George Gissing's "New Grub Street" they are merely appropriate adjectives to describe both the major characters and their creator's attitude toward them. This is a novelist's book about novelists, redolent of the author's own disappointment and frustration with his career. No reader could possibly doubt that Gissing is 'mining' his own biography and personality in his depiction of both principal characters, the dismal literary 'failure' Reardon, whose promise has been thwarted by poverty and marriage, and the cynical opportunist Milvain, whose romantic entanglement with a woman of no means threatens his rising career as a hack journalist. The two writers are friends, and the women of their lives are in fact cousins. Inheritances, or the expectation of inheritances, are involved. Actually, "New Grub Street" is in many ways a conventional 19th C British novel of marriage and manners; it's not the story structure but rather the bitter depiction of literary society that distinguishes this novel from others. Reardon's consistently iterated theme is that success in a literary career isn't based on true artistry with language but on image and access to influence -- money and back-scratching, to be blunt. Given how rife the publishing world of today is with cronyism and pettiness, there's no reason to distrust Gissing's scornful portrayal of the same industry in Victorian England as replete with bickering, jealousy, toadying to fashion, and triviality. It's surely intended to be ironic, on Gissing's part, that the last chapter of this novel is titled "Rewards." There are no rewards worth the anguish in such a mediocre career.

"New Grub Street" is also a novel about pernicious class consciousness and about the degrading effects of poverty on human character. Gissing's world-view is a kind of inverted Calvinism. Wealth isn't a visible token of God's favor, nor is poverty a result of moral weakness and unworthiness. Just the opposite: poverty is the cause of moral weakness, and wealth is what allows the wealthy to be virtuous. I have to say, there's some truth to that. The most decent character in the novel -- Marian Yule, the daughter of a cantankerous rancorous old pedant -- has this to say about her father: "" It is poverty that has made him worse than he naturally is; it has that effect on almost everybody. Money does harm, too, sometimes; but never, I think to people who have a good heart and a strong mind."" Elsewhere, the economically failing and morally flailing talented writer Reardon declares: ""The curse of poverty is to the modern world just what that of slavery was to the ancient. Rich and destitute stand to each other as free man and bond."" Once again, there's some truth to that, but I'm not sure it's a truth that bears repeating as often and as doggedly as it is in this bleak and repetitive narration.

New Grub Street is conventionally regarded as "George Gissing's finest novel." It says exactly that on the back cover of this Oxford edition. It has its merits, to be sure, in terms of its tough-minded treatment of literary pretensions and its precise psychological insights into the motivations of its characters. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it less than any of the other Gissing novels I've read: The Odd Women, The Nether World, Eve's Ransom. I suppose I'll have to confess myself to be one of the "quarter-educated" readers in the audience of tasteless philistines whom Reardon spurns and Milvain aspires to please.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Literary Life and Death, October 13, 2010

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R. Chaffey "beckahi" (Chicago) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: New Grub Street (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)

"New Grub Street" is considered to be George Gissing's finest novel, and it is indeed a unique piece of Victorian literature. Gissing perfectly captured the hopes and dreams of writers who struggled to make their living through their literature in the 1880s. "New Grub Street" evokes the time and temper of the period perfectly and allows readers to follow the trials and tribulations of a variety of characters, almost all of whom are actually rather hard to like.

The main plot focuses on Jasper Milvain and Edwin Reardon. Milvain has great plans for his life and fully expects to carry them out, if only he could have the money to do so. Sponging off his near-destitute mother at the expense of his sisters, Milvain devotes his London life to research and writing for periodicals. Steadily and slowly, he manages to make a name for himself, but continues to pursue the hope of attaining money quickly - by marrying a woman of means. His friend, Edwin Reardon, is the opposite of Milvain. He has experienced success as an author of novels, married a woman he loves desperately, but now has found himself at a dead end, out of creative juice. Writing for him has become a tedious task that causes him to question whether he wants to live or not. Money would certainly make his life easier, but Reardon is rather simple-minded when it comes to financial matters, and not malicious like Milvain. Added into the mix is Alfred Yule, a man who struggles to write literary critiques for the papers with the help of his daughter Marian, a beautiful girl who captures Milvain's eye (but not necessarily his heart), and Reardon's wife, Amy, a woman who finds the possibility of encroaching poverty horrible and coldly helps to seal her husband's sad fate. The majority of these characters, while vividly drawn and extremely realistic, are also highly unlikable. Indeed, the only truly likable character is the extremely poor writer, Harold Biffen, who knows and accepts his place within society even if it might lead to a bitter end.

"New Grub Street" is an intriguing look at what happened to the novelists and journalists at the end of the nineteenth century in England as the country embraced popular journalism and mass communication. Some writers could adapt themselves to meet this change while others could not. Gissing was an intelligent writer: his novel is peppered with allusions and obscure references and imagery that is almost reminiscent of Dante at times. Gissing perfectly captured the elation and despair of his wide cast of characters, staying true to the realities of the people and the time rather than romanticizing what their lives might have been like.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing, November 11, 2010

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Mayo "Mayo" (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: New Grub Street (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)

Be it person or circumstance, the description of each is woven with such artistry as to cause pause and reflection several times before each page turn. Most notable is Gissing's incredible ability to suffocate you in each character's frustrations. It is life in the raw. But on the page.