The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
                                Volume XIII. The Victorian Age, Part One.

              XIV. George Meredith, Samuel Butler, George Gissing.

            § 17. Novels of the middle classes: problems discussed in New Grub Street, Born
                                  in Exile and The Odd Women.
 

           Certain of the novels, New Grub Street, Born in Exile and The Odd Women, portray a
           rather higher stratum of society, whose origins are in the suburbs or the provinces; but the
           malignant effects of poverty or obscure birth invade this region also. The theme is frequently
           the endeavour of one born in an inferior station of grasp at the advantages of culture or ease
           for which, by intellect or temperament, he or she is fitted, but excluded by lack of money or by
           defect of social aptitude; it is the case with Godwin Peak and with Eve Madeley; they both
           seek their prize by dishonourable means; both, in some shifty way, have to disavow an earlier
           hampering alliance; these deteriorations are traced back to poverty. The novels last named
           also work out vigorously, and without dogmatism (which Gissing could not tolerate), problems
           arising out of distinctly modern conditions. They exhibit a complete change of temper from the
           attacks made on abuses with reforming intent by Dickens and Reade. In New Grub Street,
           there is the problem of conscience in the conditions of modern journalism; in Born in Exile,
           the conflict between religion and science; in The Odd Women, the status of women made
           conscious of their unpreparedness and superfluousness when the sheltering home collapses.
           Some of Gissing’s finest work in the more strictly defined business of the novelist is in these
           books; the characterisation in New Grub Street of Alfred Yule—pedantic, unimaginatively
           sincere, ageing, beset by minor ailments, the springs of courtesy and kindliness dried up in him
           by constant disappointment, swept aside by the tide of progress, but holding sardonically to his
           place—has a grip and tenacity and a freedom from analytical impediment to which Gissing
           rarely attained; the characters of Reardon, suffering from “the malady that falls upon
           outwearied imagination,” and Biffen, author of the unsuccessful novel Mr. Bailey, Grocer (an
           example of the theory of “absolute realism in the sphere of the ignobly decent”) are made the
           more real by a vein of reminiscence of Gissing’s own apprenticeship to want and defeat; his
           temperament gave him, moreover, a clue to these types, sensitive, self-centred, conceiving
           themselves the chosen victims of adversity, and lacking in “social nerve.” In The Odd Women
           is illustrated another way in which Gissing foresaw new directions of technical method and
           criticism of life in the novel form; it is found in the relentless study, unmoved by any
           considerations of sentiment or plot, of the beginning, course and ending of Virginia Madden’s
           indulgence in secret drinking.
 

                                                                                The classical world; By the Ionian Sea; Veranilda
 

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