Abstract
None of Gissing’s work is unflawed by his merely personal prejudices and temperament, but to focus attention on them as Virginia Woolf did when she described him as a writer with whom ‘we establish a personal rather than an artistic relationship’,1 can obscure the objective achievement. The brief biographical account that follows, therefore, offers a critical introduction to some of the elements in Gissing’s life that shaped his imaginative outlook, rather than an explanation to the terms of which all his work can be reduced.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Virginia Woolf, ‘George Gissing’, Collected Essays, I (1966) p. 297.
Quoted by B. Dobell, Introduction to James Thomson (‘B.V.’), Poetical Works, ed. Dobell (1895) I, pp. lii–liii.
John Spiers and Pierre Coustillas, The Rediscovery of George Gissing (1971) p. 16. See also Tindall, Born Exile, pp. 47–56.
See Pierre Coustillas, ‘George Gissing à Manchester’, Etudes Anglaises, XVI (July-Sep 1963) 254–61.
Austin Harrison, ‘George Gissing’, Nineteenth Century, LX (Sep 1906) 458-9.
John Gross, Introduction to New Grub Street (Bodley Head, 1967) p. v; hereafter abbreviated to NGS.
Wanda Neff, Victorian Working Women (1929) ch. V, ‘The Governess’.
Max Nordau, Degeneration (Popular ed., 1913) p. 39.
Guinevere Griest, Mudie’s Circulating Library and the Victorian Novel (Indiana, 1971).
Copyright information
© 1975 Adrian Poole
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Poole, A. (1975). Introduction: Gissing and the Victorian Novel. In: Gissing in Context. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-02530-5_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-02530-5_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-02532-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-02530-5
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)