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New Grub Street

by George Gissing

Published May 1967
In New Grub Street George Gissing re-created a microcosm of London's literary society as he had experienced it. His novel is at once a major social document and a story that draws us irresistibly into the twilit world of Edwin Reardon, a struggling novelist, and his friends and acquaintances in Grub Street including Jasper Milvain, an ambitious journalist, and Alfred Yule, an embittered critic. Here Gissing brings to life the bitter battles (fought out in obscure garrets or in the Reading Room of the British Museum) between integrity and the dictates of the market place, the miseries of genteel poverty and the damage that failure and hardship do to human personality and relationships.

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The Odd Women

by George Gissing

Published 1 April 1971
Five odd women-women without husbands-are the subject of this powerful novel, set in Victorian London, by a writer whose perceptions about people, particularly women, would be remarkable in any age and are extraordinary in the 1890s. The story concerns the choices that five different women have to make and what those choices imply about men's and women's status in society and relationship to each other.

Alice and Virginia Madden, suddenly left adrift by the death of their improvident father, must take grinding and humiliating "genteel" work. Terrified of sharing their fate, their younger sister Monica accepts a proposal of marriage from a man who gives her financial security but makes her life wretched.

Interwoven with their fortunes are Mary Barfoot and Rhoda Nunn, who are dedicating their lives to training young women in skills they can use to support themselves. Their broader aim is to help free both sexes from whatever distorts or depletes their humanity-including, if necessary, marriage. Into their lives comes Mary's forceful and engaging cousin, Everard Barfoot, and as he and Rhoda become locked in an increasingly significant and passionate struggle, Rhoda finds out through the refining fire what "love" sometimes means and what it means to be true to herself.

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The Crown of Life

by George Gissing

Published 12 April 1979
A narrative that depicts life in the most truthful manner. Gissing has accounted the overwhelming realities of life wherein true love and sincere emotions are not always possible to achieve. When some lucky people attain what they want, it is not an everyday happening.

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Our Friend the Charlatan

by George Gissing

Published 1 September 2002
The turmoil and troubles faced in relationships have been expounded in this work. Delving into the attitudes of the elite and peerage of the British realm, Gissing has created a beautiful piece. With characters drawn with great detail and a well-knitted plot, this work is highly engrossing!