There are two full-length biographies, both very competent: Jacob Korg, George Gissing: A Critical
Biography (1965) and John Halperin, George Gissing: A Life in Books (1982). However, neither
biographer was able to make use of the nine volumes of the Collected Letters (1990-1996). The long
biographical essays which preface each volume, by the editors Paul F. Mattheisen, Arthur C. Young and
Pierre Coustillas, are outstanding for their judicious tone and psychological insight. The staggering range
and depth of the notes -- the editors seem to be all but omniscient -- make this edition something of
scholarly milestone.

There is no truly outstanding critical study of Gissing's overall achievement. Gillian Tindall, The Born
Exile (1974) is a lively psychological portrait of the man, and of the works insofar as they illuminate the
man, but the criticism is sketchy, especially on the major novels. Adrian Poole, Gissing in Context (1975)
and John Goode, George Gissing: Ideology and Fiction (1978) are both written in an impenetrable style.

New Grub Street has attracted the most critical attention. There is a short guide devoted entirely to the
novel by P.J. Keating, but it's rather mechanically laid out. For the late 19thC literary background which
is relevant to the novel (eg the plight of authors in this period; methods of publishing) you can consult The
English Common Reader by Richard Altick or (better) John Gross's Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters.
The most interesting piece of all is Chapter 6 of Nigel Cross's The Common Writer: Life in Nineteenth
Century Grub Street. This chapter, titled "Gissing's New Grub Street, 1880-1900," is a mine of
information about writers and publishers of the 3-volume novel, and even more interestingly, it discusses
the main characters of New Grub Street in terms of real-life writing careers, some possibly known to
Gissing. It's great social and literary history.

Gissing has not yet attracted much attention from the latest generation of literary theoreticians, but one
attempt to consider the novel using the tools of structuralism is John Peck, "NGS: Some suggestions for
an approach through form" in The Gissing Newsletter, XIV (July 1978).
 

URL : http://www.flinders.edu.au/topics/Morton/Gissing/GissingSecSources.htm
 

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