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George Gissing: London's Restless Analyst
The Gissing Journal Volume XL, Number 3, July 2004 “More than most men am I dependent on sympathy to bring out the best that is in me.” Commonplace Book George Gissing (1857-1903): London’s Restless Analyst1 RICHARD DENNIS University College London “Walk with me, reader, into Whitecross Street. It is Saturday night, the market- night of the poor; also the one evening in the week which the weary toilers of our great city can devote to ease and recreation in the sweet assurance of a morrow unenslaved. Let us see how they spend this ‘Truce of God’; our opportunities will be of the best in the district we are entering.” The first words of Workers in the Dawn, the first published novel of the twenty-two-year-old George Gissing. I don’t think its most enthusiastic ad- vocate could claim that Workers in the Dawn is a masterpiece of English literature. But for all its faults it exemplifies a recurring characteristic of Gissing’s work, and the reason why I, as a historical geographer, have be- come a convert and, today, an enthusiastic proselytizer on his behalf. Gissing encouraged his readers to explore and, more than that, to engage with city life. Sometimes, like many earlier writers, he dealt in generic city- scapes—the “East End,” London beyond City Road, is described in the most general of terms—but more often, and especially in his later novels, Gissing’s London is very precisely defined: his characters live in real streets that the author has explored for himself, even in particular buildings. -
NINETEENTH-CENTURY GENDER STUDIES ISSUE 4.1 (SPRING 2008) George Gissing's Manifesto: the Odd Women and the Unclassed
NINETEENTH-CENTURY GENDER STUDIES # ISSUE 4.1 (SPRING 2008) George Gissing's Manifesto: The Odd Women and The Unclassed By Lawton A. Brewer, Georgia State University <1>Jacob Korg, in George Gissing: A Critical Biography, contends that, although the economic circumstances of the Madden sisters, focal characters of The Odd Women, constitute severe challenges to their survival, “[…] Gissing perceives that the most desperate element of their plight is the loneliness and barrenness of lives in which an invitation to tea or a slice of roast beef are events of supreme importance” (188). The sisters long for activities appropriate to their claim to membership in the genteel middle class. Nonetheless, it is the Madden’s poverty that accounts for the social sterility Korg so correctly identifies. Their desire to eat competes with their desire for class inclusion. Consequently, although the book focuses on issues such as marriage, friendship, and kinship, these affiliations are brokered in an economic system in which everything has, quite literally, a price. George Gissing’s The Odd Women, a novel so often seen in terms of its feministic depiction of the “woman problem,”(1) reduces virtually every human relationship to the level of an economic transaction of some sort. Certainly, Gissing does not render every relationship in exclusively economic terms, nor does he stipulate that women or men are economic entities and nothing else. However, the deprived condition endured by the characters regulates many of the decisions, conversations, and commentary in the novel, resulting in discussions which often suggest, explicitly or implicitly, a business deal of some kind. -
Issn 0017-0615 the Gissing Journal
ISSN 0017-0615 THE GISSING JOURNAL “More than most men am I dependent on sympathy to bring out the best that is in me.” – George Gissing’s Commonplace Book. ***************************** Volume XXXII, Number 2 April, 1996 ****************************** Contents A Distinguished Acquaintance of Gissing’s at Ciboure: Arthur Brownlow Fforde, by Pierre Coustillas 1 Between Emancipation and Restraint – Reading the Body in The Odd Women, by Mihoko Takeda 10 Shan F. Bullock: Gissing’s Admirer and an Ingenious Short Story Writer, by Masahiko Yahata 14 A Forgotten Assessment of Veranilda, by Randolph Faries, 2d 19 Gissing in the Boston Evening Transcript: His Interview by Joseph Anderson, by Pierre Coustillas 23 Book Review, by John Sloan 29 Notes and News 32 Recent Publications 34 Springtime in Northumberland, by Algernon Gissing 36 -- 1 -- A Distinguished Acquaintance of Gissing’s at Ciboure Arthur Brownlow Fforde Pierre Coustillas Until recently little enough was known of Gissing’s stay at Ciboure, the small fishing harbour adjoining Saint-Jean-de-Luz, from July 1902 to June 1903. He now kept his diary very irregularly and wrote down but few details about his social life. Correspondence with his relatives and friends was becoming infrequent; having to make a living by his pen, he concentrated on work as much as his health allowed. More numerous than those to any other correspondent at this time, his letters to his literary agent, James B. Pinker, are a faithful mirror of his professional activities, but of his non-literary occupations he said little to anyone. Rarely did he suggest that the trio he formed with Gabrielle Fleury and “Maman” enjoyed a pleasant and varied social life, that of the English colony. -
ISSN 0017-0615 the GISSING JOURNAL “More Than Most Men Am I Dependent on Sympathy to Bring out the Best That Is in Me.”
ISSN 0017-0615 THE GISSING JOURNAL “More than most men am I dependent on sympathy to bring out the best that is in me.” – George Gissing’s Commonplace Book. ********************************** Volume XXX, Number 2 April, 1994 ********************************** Contents London Homes and Haunts of George Gissing: An 1 Unpublished Essay by A. C. Gissing, edited by Pierre Coustillas and Xavier Pétremand The Critical Response to Gissing and Commentary about 15 him in the Chicago Evening Post (concluded), by Robert L. Selig Book Reviews, by Bouwe Postmus, Jacob Korg and Pierre Coustillas 22 Thesis Abstract, by Chandra Shekar Dubey 24 Notes and News 36 Recent Publications 39 -- 1 -- London Homes and Haunts of George Gissing An Unpublished Essay by A. C. Gissing Edited by Pierre Coustillas and Xavier Pétremand In our introduction to “George Gissing and War,” which was printed in the January 1992 number of this journal, we mentioned the existence of two other unpublished essays by Alfred Gissing, “Frederic Harrison and George Gissing” and “London Homes and Haunts of George Gissing.” The three of them were doubtless written in the 1930s when he lived with his sole surviving aunt Ellen at Croft Cottage. Alfred did not date these essays, but they all carry his address of the period – Barbon, Westmorland, via Carnforth. Although they were less ambitious pieces than the articles he published in the National Review in August 1929 and January 1937, they were doubtless intended for publication; yet there is no evidence available that their author tried to find them a home in magazines such as T.P.’s Weekly or John o’ London’s Weekly, which sought to offer cultural entertainment and information to a public that cared for literature and any easily digestible comment on writers’ lives and works. -
The Gissing Newsletter
THE GISSING NEWSLETTER “More than most men am I dependent on sympathy to bring out the best that is in me.” – George Gissing’s Commonplace Book. ********************************** Volume III, Number 2 June, 1967 ********************************** -- 1 -- Denzil Quarrier and the Woman Question James Haydock Wisconsin State University The importance of the woman question in Gissing’s work is undisputed. Scholars generally agree that Gissing had much to say about the subject in The Emancipated, The Odd Women, In the Year of the Jubilee, and The Whirlpool. Yet one other novel – of paramount importance in this connection – seems to have been overlooked. That novel is Denzil Quarrier (1892). It has more on the woman question than any of Gissing’s previous novels, and it presents for the first time an utterance that later becomes the informing idea of The Odd Women (1893). Denzil Quarrier’s address to the Polterham voters, entitled “Woman: Her Place in Modern Life,” is that part of the novel where Gissing’s views are most accurately reflected. In the town of Polterham even a passing mention of the woman question is enough to bring heated discussion. When the townsmen hear that Quarrier is the radical candidate for membership in Parliament, one of them asks “whether Mr. Quarrier is disposed to support the Female Suffrage movement.” Another retorts that if such be the case, “he mustn’t expect my vote and interest. We’ve seen enough in Polterham lately of the Female question” (first edition, ch. IV, p. 47). Then, commenting as author, Gissing adds: “The Woman question was rather a dangerous one in Polterham just now; that period of Revivalism (in which the women made fools of themselves), and the subsequent campaign of Mrs. -
Henry Ryecroft Meets Henry Maitland: George Gissing in and on Bloomsbury
Henry Ryecroft meets Henry Maitland: George Gissing in and on Bloomsbury Richard Dennis Dept of Geography, UCL [email protected] Introduction George Gissing is not normally associated with Bloomsbury. He is a man of the slums, or on the margins, or maybe a cynical observer of the nouveau riche, but never a Bloomsbury academic or intellectual. And yet Bloomsbury featured prominently in both his own life and his work. In this paper I want to focus on (1) Gissing’s relationship with the British Museum; (2) his use of the streets and squares of Bloomsbury; (3) his own residence in various lodgings in Bloomsbury and how this translated into his novels; and (4) to reflect on his overall personification of Bloomsbury, including scenes from his novels that were apparently NOT based on his own particular experiences. The British Museum Gissing obtained his reader’s ticket for the British Museum Reading Room in November 1877, the day after his 20th birthday.1 In New Grub Street Edwin Reardon applies for his reader’s ticket on his 21st birthday, for which he needed “the signature of some respectable householder”.2 Gissing himself seems not to have had any difficulty getting his ticket, notwithstanding both his youth (he must have misrepresented his age and claimed to be 21) and his recently obtained criminal record.3 The British Museum was central to Gissing’s life in London, both as an impoverished writer, as a source of heat, light and running water as well as a site for research, and as a classical scholar. -
Stony Brook University
SSStttooonnnyyy BBBrrrooooookkk UUUnnniiivvveeerrrsssiiitttyyy The official electronic file of this thesis or dissertation is maintained by the University Libraries on behalf of The Graduate School at Stony Brook University. ©©© AAAllllll RRRiiiggghhhtttsss RRReeessseeerrrvvveeeddd bbbyyy AAAuuuttthhhooorrr... The Text at an Impasse: Authorial, Representational, and Structural Boredoms in Selected Works by Gautier, Flaubert, and Gissing A Dissertation Presented by Ashar E. Foley to The Graduate School in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature Stony Brook University August 2014 Copyright by Ashar Foley 2014 Stony Brook University The Graduate School Ashar Foley We, the dissertation committee for the above candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy degree, hereby recommend acceptance of this dissertation. Robert Harvey – Dissertation Advisor Distinguished Professor and Chair, Cultural Analysis and Theory Sandy Petrey – Chairperson of Defense Professor Emeritus, Cultural Analysis and Theory Adrienne Munich Professor, English Patricia Meyer Spacks Edgar F. Shannon Professor Emerita, English University of Virginia This dissertation is accepted by the Graduate School Charles Taber Dean of the Graduate School ii Abstract of the Dissertation The Text at an Impasse: Authorial, Representational, and Structural Boredoms in Selected Works by Gautier, Flaubert, and Gissing by Ashar E. Foley Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature Stony Brook University 2014 Théophile Gautier, Gustave Flaubert, and George Gissing deploy tropes of bored readers and writers and dilatory narrative structures in order to register their ambivalence toward the shift from sponsorship of the arts to a literary marketplace. In contrast to popular eighteenth- and nineteenth-century conceptions of the mood as sign of bad character, intellectual deficiency, or elitism, my chosen novelists posit boredom as a site from which to assess and critique their roles in culture. -
George Gissing and the Place of Realism
George Gissing and the Place of Realism George Gissing and the Place of Realism Edited by Rebecca Hutcheon George Gissing and the Place of Realism Edited by Rebecca Hutcheon This book first published 2021 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2021 by Rebecca Hutcheon and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-6998-5 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-6998-0 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ................................................................................................ 1 Rebecca Hutcheon Chapter 1 .................................................................................................. 14 George Gissing, Geographer? Richard Dennis Chapter 2 .................................................................................................. 36 Workers in the Dawn, Slum Writing and London’s “Urban Majority” Districts Jason Finch Chapter 3 .................................................................................................. 55 Four Lady Cyclists José Maria Diaz Lage Chapter 4 .................................................................................................. 70 Gissing’s Literary -
Issn 0017-0615 the Gissing Journal
ISSN 0017-0615 THE GISSING JOURNAL “More than most men am I dependent on sympathy to bring out the best that is in me.” – George Gissing’s Commonplace Book. ***************************** Volume XXXIII, Number 4 October, 1997 ****************************** Contents The Forthcoming Gissing Conference: First Announcement 1 George Gissing, Henry James and the Concept of Realism, 2 by Janice Deledalle-Rhodes Gissing and the Paparazzi, by Francesco Badolato and 29 Pierre Coustillas “Far, Far Away”: George Gissing’s Passion for the Classics, 35 by Ayaka Okada Book Review, by William Greenslade 37 Notes and News 43 Recent Publications 47 -- 1 -- First Announcement Gissing Conference 9-11 September 1999 English Department, University of Amsterdam Spuistraat 210, 1012 VT Amsterdam The Netherlands Preparations are under way for an international Gissing Conference to be held at Amsterdam in the late summer of 1999. The organizers have gratefully accepted the offer made by the English Department in the University of Amsterdam to host this first major conference to focus on the works of the novelist, whose reappraisal has been intensified by and has greatly benefited from the recently completed publication of his collected correspondence. The conference will be held at the newly restored Doelenzaal, a splendid example of seventeenth-century Dutch architecture, in the heart of the old city. Within walking distance are some of the world’s greatest art collections, housed in the Rijksmuseum, the Municipal museum and the Van Gogh museum. The members of the organizing Committee are: Prof. Martha S. Vogeler (USA), Prof. Jacob Korg (USA), Prof. Pierre Coustillas (France), Dr. David Grylls (England) and Drs. -
Issn 0017-0615 the Gissing Journal
ISSN 0017-0615 THE GISSING JOURNAL “More than most men am I dependent on sympathy to bring out the best that is in me.” – George Gissing’s Commonplace Book. ***************************** Volume XXXIV, Number 1 January, 1998 ****************************** Contents More of Gissing’s “Indispensable” False Starts and Discarded Novels, 1 by Marilyn B. Saveson The Hope of Pessimism and the Will to Live in “The Unclassed,” 8 by Markus Neacey Walter Gissing: A Further Note, by William Greenslade 17 More about Gissing and the Paparazzi, by Francesco Badolato 19 and Pierre Coustillas Book Reviews, by Fumio Hojoh, Janice Deledalle-Rhodes, 22 Wulfhard Stahl, and Bouwe Postmus Notes and News 34 Recent Publications 36 -- 1 -- More of Gissing’s “Indispensable” False Starts and Discarded Novels Marilyn B. Saveson Otterbein College, Westerville, Ohio “Again & again & yet again I have begun a novel; only to write a few chapters & throw them aside as useless,” wrote George Gissing on 2 December 1892. “Many, many months have I thus wasted.” Readers of his diary and of his letters will recognize this characteristic frame of mind in Gissing. It has been known for some time that he made at least 35 false starts of novels, and that an additional 4 were actually completed before being abandoned or lost. These 39 lost works are identified and described in my article “Gissing’s ‘Indispensable’ False Starts: an Annotated Checklist of his Discarded Novels” in the January 1990 issue of the Gissing Newsletter, pp. 2-17. The key word in the title is “indispensable.” As he explained to his brother Algernon on 29 May 1884, after complaining about wasted time and paper, “Not waste, however; it is indispensable.” He did not mean that the discarded material was useful in future works, although it sometimes was. -
TESOROS DIGITALES 10 London
8)73637(-+-8%0)7 0SRHSR « When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life ; for there is in London all that life can afford. » (« Cuando un hombre está cansado de Londres, está cansado de la vida, porque hay en Londres, todo lo que la vida puede aportar. ») (Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), en Life of Samuel Johnson (Vida de Samuel Johnson, 1791), de James Boswell). No sabemos si Londres, que 2012, con los Juegos Olímpicos, el Jubileo de la Reina Isabel II y el bicentenario del nacimiento de Charles Dickens, trae a las primeras planas de la actualidad, contiene efectivamente todo lo que la vida puede aportar, pero es cierto que la ciudad se presta La City de Londres hacia 1630, vista desde Southwark y siempre se ha prestado a todas las evocaciones y a todos los géneros literarios : novelas y obras de teatro inglesas, impresiones de viajeros extranjeros, poemas, pero también novelas policíacas, picaresca y de terror… Se lo contaremos todo en esta novena entrega de Tesoros Digitales titulada : London… ▲ Ilustración : Wikimedia Commons. Londres descrita por sus habitantes Claes Van Visscher – Panorama de Londres (1616) ▲ Ilustración : Wikimedia Commons. En la Edad Media, Londres, que había sido un importante asentamiento romano, era ya una ciudad considerable : los reyes de Inglaterra eran coronados en la Abadía de Westminster y vivían en el castillo de la Torre de Londres. No es de extrañar, por lo tanto, que existan numerosas referencias a la capital del reino en gestas medievales como la Leyenda Arturiana o las aventuras de Robin Hood… Los Cuentos de Canterbury (Canterbury Tales, S. -
Gissing's New Grub Street and the Wider Concerns of Impoverishment
Gissing’s New Grub Street and the Wider Concerns of Impoverishment MCPHERSON, Sue Available from Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive (SHURA) at: http://shura.shu.ac.uk/13174/ This document is the author deposited version. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from it. Published version MCPHERSON, Sue (2017). Gissing’s New Grub Street and the Wider Concerns of Impoverishment. English Literature in Transition 1880-1920, 60 (4), 490-505. Copyright and re-use policy See http://shura.shu.ac.uk/information.html Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive http://shura.shu.ac.uk 1 Sue McPherson, Sheffield Hallam University, UK. Gissing’s New Grub Street and the Wider Concerns of Impoverishment Trying to survive on an irregular income, Harold Biffen, educated and impoverished author, pawns his belongings four times in the course of New Grub Street. Edwin Reardon, writer and self-declared part of a class of “casual wage-earners,” sells books and furniture to second-hand dealers to supplement his earnings.1 Major and minor characters often feel the pang of hunger: Reardon spends time in “semi-starvation,” Biffen is described as a man of “excessive meagreness [that] would all but have qualified him to enter an exhibition in the capacity of living skeleton,” a “hunger-bitten clerk” is seen scribbling job applications, and an unemployed surgeon, Victor, begs for coffee and food at Camden Town Railway Station.2 Much attention has been paid to how New Grub Street represents the failures and successes of late-Victorian