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Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 74-21,704 MOORE, Lewis Durward, 1937- A STUDY OF GEORGE GISSING AND SOCIAL DARWINISM WITH SPECIAL EMPHASIS ON NEW GRUB STREET AND THE PRIVATE PAPERS OF H E N R m Y E C R D F T ! The American University, Ph.D., 1974 Language and Literature, general University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan © Copyright by Lewis Durward Moore 1974 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A STUDY OF GEOROE GISSING AND SOCIAL DARWINISM WITH SPECIAL EMPHASIS ON NEW GRUB STREET AND THE PRIVATE PAPERS OF HENRY RYECROFT BY LEWIS DURWARD MOORE Submitted to the Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of The American University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Literary Studies Q - Signatures Committee Dean of the College Chairman: Date: 197^ The American University Washington, D. C. .THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LIIRAE'/ Hgri Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A STUDY OF GEORGE GISSING AND SOCIAL DARWINISM WITH SPECIAL EMPHASIS ON NEW GRUB STREET AND THE PRIVATE PAPERS OF HENRY RYECROFT This paper examines the relationship between social Darwinism and selected novels of George Gisaing* Social Darwinism, a late 19th century social theory growing out of evolutionary thought in general, and Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species in particular, found its most fervid supporter in Herbert Spencer. An analysis of social Darwinist ideas in Part One of the paper, particularly those of Spencer and his American disciple, William Graham Sumner, shows that four elements are of primary importance: the idea of the struggle for existence and consequent survival of the fittest, the limited role of the state, the emphasis on private versus government charity, and the freedom of the individual. Part Two of the paper examines a wide selection of Gissing's novels, relating the ideas of social Darwinism to his major themes, i.e., his concern for the role of women, the plight of the poor, the poor but cultured young man or woman, and the role of the writer and artist in society. In the third part of the paper, New Grub Street (1891) and The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft (I90j5) are chosen as two of Gissing's most fruitful novels through which to relate the ideas of social Darwinism and his major themes. In both of these novels, writers are the dominant Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ii characters* and The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft is seen as a con­ tinuation of the themes and ideaB of New Grub Street. This relation­ shipobetween the two novels, coupled with their place in Gissing's literary career, New Grub Street approximately in the middle and The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft at the end, allows one to use the two novels as models representing essential concerns of Gissing at strategic stages of his career. My conclusion is that in New Grub Street and The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft Gissing reflects to a large extent the language and ideas of social Darwinism, and though he clearly Ehows in his letters his aversion to the competitive struggle in hie day, he remains am­ bivalent in these novels. Characters are allowed to express their views on society, with special emphasis on social Darwinist ideas, but the narrator remains in the background. Gissing views his role as that of the artist presenting life as he sees it and allows the reader to draw his own conclusion about the social or moral issues presented. Characters take stands for and against the ideas of social Darwinism, but the narrator remains neutral. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ill Contents Introduction p. 1 . Part I......................................................... p. 7 . Part II p. 13. Part III, p. 21. Appendix...................... p. 39. A Selected Bibliography.... ....p. ^5. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. George Gissing's novels were reviewed in a variety of ways during his literary career, but if there is any consensus of opinion in these reviews, it is that he is a thoughtful novelist, one con­ cerned with ideas, whose works are seriously concerned with contem­ porary problems. For example, an unsigned review of The Whirlpool in the Manchester Guardian. April 13, 1897» comments: "Novel readers who are weary of the conventional love story turn with a certain satisfaction to the works of Mr. George Gissing, where they are sure to find a thoughtful presentment in dramatic form of some of the wider and more complicated issues of modern society."^ An unsigned review of the same novel in the Academy. May 15, 1897, states: "Mr. Gissing is in love with ideas, and can illustrate them through flesh and blood: his work lives."2 Finally, in an unsigned review of Our Friend the Charlatan in The Times. June 29, 1901, the critic sums up Gissing's career: "Mr. Gissing is still, too, it may be noted, more interested in ideas than in men and women. Look back upon the many hours that have been profitably spent over his books and you will find that the characters you renember best are personifications of some idea rather than human beings drawn for their own sake."^ These typi­ cal reviews all appeared in the later period of Gissing's career, but similar ones can be found for the earlier stages of his career. ^Rev. of The Whirlpool, by George Gissing, Manchester Guardian, 13 April 1897, rpt. in Gissing: The Critical Heritage, ed. Pierre Coustillas and Colin Partridge (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972), p. 276. 2Rev. of The Whirlpool, by George Gissing, Academy. 15 May 1897, li, 516-175 rpt. in Gissing: The Critical Heritage, ed. Coustillas and Partridge, p. 284. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 It is not only the physical setting of the modern world but the dilemmas of that world with which Gissing concerns himself, i.e., the alienation of the talented and sensitive but poor young man or woman, poverty in general, disease, slums, alcoholism, failure, mass culture, and the place of women in society. Of course, Gissing was not the first to write about the problems of 19th century industrial England. Among those who had explored the miserable social conditions in which the vast majority of Englishmen lived, were: Benjamin Disraeli in Sybil, or The Two Nations (l8*t5 ), Elizabeth Gaskell in Mary Barton (18^8) and North and South (1855), Charles Kingsley in Alton Locke. Tailor and Poet (1850) and Yeast (1851), Charles Dickens in Hard Times (185^), and George Eliot in Felix Holt. The Radical (1866), not to mention writers current with Gissing, such as Walter Besant. It must be admitted, however, that the earlier novels dealing with social and industrial problems were concerned with what might be called the beginnings of conditions which by Gissing's time had both intensified and been dealt with, however inadequately, in the political process. Possibly Gissing's pessimism can be partially traced to the lack of any real progress in dealing effectively with social problems by his time. The literary exploration of social problems in 19th century England was concomitant with, and possibly a spur to, various reform measures. In 1832 and again in 1867, Parliament passed bills that ^Rev. of Our Friend the Charlatan, by George Gissing, The Times. 29 June 1901, 5; rpt. in Gissing: The Critical Heritage. ed. Coustillas and Partridge, p. 377* Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.