New Grub Street

"Literature nowadays is a trade. Putting aside men of genius, who may succeed by mere cosmic force, your successful man of letters is your skillful tradesman. He thinks first and foremost of the markets; when one kind of goods begins to go off slackly, he is ready with something new and appetizing.......more

Sometimes you see those guys on the street with one long dotted line tattoed round their neck and an inscription CUT HERE. This is one of their favourite novels.......more

Gissing is fast becoming on of my favourite Victorian writers. His writing is so strong, his description of people and his observations so well thought out and poignant. This is a story that deals will struggling writers within 1880s London, and is superbly and heart-breakingly written. Brilliant.......more

Gissing’s seminal novel is perched peculiarly on the precipice of modernism and the hard crank of technogeddon is hewn into every toilsome syllable. Jasper and Edward are the foolish scribes living by their pens (imagine such an absurd notion!), kicking against the hot fuzz of hackdom and bitchery i......more

Revisiting New Grub Street I have been a reader of the late Victorian novelist George Gissing (1857 -- 1903) for most of my life and have read or reread much of his writing and reviewed it online. Gissing remains too little known and I focused in my reading and online reviewing on some of his less fa......more