George Gissing

The Odd Women (1893) is a novel by George Gissing. Inspired by a report of over one million more women living in Britain than men, Gissing sought to explore the societal and personal implications of unmarried life while exploring the demands of the growing feminist movement. The Odd Women is a story of romance, independence, and the pressures of society that poses important questions about convention in Victorian England while proving surprisingly...

An exploration of the class struggle in nineteenth century London where a potential inheritance turns family and friends into desperate foes eager to escape their circumstance. A compelling story about greed, deception and the innate need to survive. Michael Snowdon lives like a pauper despite inheriting a massive fortune. He plans to leave his money to Jane, his neglected granddaughter, in hopes that she will spend it on charitable causes. Yet, Michael's...

"Our Friend the Charlatan" is a 1901 novel by British novelist George Gissing. The story follows Dice Lashmore, a man who will do anything he can to get rich. However, it seems to him that the most obvious thing he could do to that end would be to find a rich wife. A thought-provoking chronicle of his various attempts at courtship and eventual moral decline, "Our Friend the Charlatan" is not to be missed by fans and collectors of Gissing's seminal...

Tomorrow I shall leave by the Messina boat, which calls at Paola. It is now more than a twelvemonth since I began to think of Paola, and an image of the place has grown in my mind. I picture a little marina; a yellowish little town just above; and behind, rising grandly, the long range of mountains which guard the shore of Calabria. Paola has no special interest that I know of, but it is the nearest point on the coast to Cosenza, which has interest...

Compiled in one book, the essential collection of books by George Gissing: Born in Exile, By the Ionian Sea, The Crown of Life, Demos, The Emancipated, Eve's Ransom, The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories, In the Year of Jubilee, A Life's Morning, The Nether World, New Grub Street, The Odd Women, Our Friend the Charlatan, The Paying Guest, The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, The Town Traveller, Veranilda, and The Whirlpool.

Miriam Baske, a young widow, freed from the constraints of making a living, leaves behind the grey stone chapels and flinty hearts of Lancashire for the sun and artistic splendour of Italy. She meets a host of her countrymen vacationing and occupying themselves with travel, art, philosophy, romance, and improving their health.

The Mumfords are a middle-class couple, living in suburban Sutton on the outskirts of London with their young son. Reading the newspaper, they become aware of a young woman seeking a place as a "paying guest," or lodger. To supplement their income they decide to take a tenant, named Louise Derrick, who is in need of a place to live due to disagreements with her immediate family. Louise, who is poorly educated and bad-tempered, is being romantically...

Alma's farther loses his fortune at his bank and commits suicide, forcing his 20 year old daughter to go abroad to make plans and pursue her career. Two admirers follow her: Cyrus Redgrave, a wealthy bachelor who makes an indecent proposal, and Harvey Rolfe, whom she ends up marrying.

The love story is not an unrequited romance - the two lovers are aware of their feelings for each other - as much as it is an unrewarded one, for the plot revolves around keeping the two from each other, as Veranilda becomes a pawn between the competing courts of Justinian and Totila. The story of Veranilda takes place during the time of the Gothic King Totila's advance on Naples and Rome.

Charles Dickens: A Critical Study was written in Siena, Italy in 1897 and first published by Blackie in the Victorian Era Series in February 1898. Any doubts that readers and critics harboured over the choice of Gissing as author were swept aside on the book's publication. It was hailed as a triumphant feat of original and incisive criticism allied to level-headed conclusions. Literature, the forerunner of the Times Literary Supplement, described...