George Robert Gissing (1857-1903)

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George Gissing by Lily Waldron (A portait in oils from photographs)
© Wakefield Art Galleries and Museums. Published by The Gissing Trust, Wakefield.


Digitized Version of The Gissing Newsletter and The Gissing Journal

Works The Gissing Trust DLB (Jacob Korg) Bibliography
E-texts The Gissing Journal Gissing Web Sites Translations
Pierre Coustillas Chronology Idle Booksellers Message Board



Gissing Site Search
The Complete Works of George Gissing on Charles Dickens (Grayswood Press)

Pierre.Coustillas, The Heroic Life of George Gissing, Part I: 1857-1888 (Pickering, 2011)
Pierre.Coustillas, The Heroic Life of George Gissing, Part II: 1888-1897 (Pickering, 2012)
Pierre.Coustillas, The Heroic Life of George Gissing, Part III: 1897-1903 (Pickering, 2012)
Markus Neacey, The Gissing Journal: A History and Index of the First 50 Years (Grayswood, 2016)

Chris Baggs (Last updated: September 7, 2023)
  1. The 'What Did Gissing Read?' file contains an alphabetical listing by author of all the books that Gissing read, with much added information. It includes, when he read the item, where he obtained it, its language, and appropriate quotes from Gissing about the item and the author.
  2. The 'Introduction' file contains a copy of the article published in the Gissing Journal 57 (4) October 2023. It describes the 'What Did Gissing Read?' database, what it contains, how it was constructed, and how the data can be manipulated, with suggestions as to how it might be used.

It is because nations tend to stupidity and baseness that mankind moves so slowly; it is because individuals have a capacity for better things that it moves at all. (The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, I, 16)

Strange how . . . I am possessed with the idea I shall not live much longer. Not a personal thought but is coloured by this conviction. I never look forward more than a year or two at the utmost, it is the habit of my mind, in utter sincerity, to expect no longer tenure of life than that. I don't know how this has come about; perhaps my absolute loneliness has something to do with it. Then I am haunted by the idea that I am consumptive; I never cough without putting a finger to my tongue, to see if there is a sign of blood. (George Gissing, Diary, June 1888)


The Gissing's family home
Thompson's Yard, Wakefield
Ink and watercolour by Joe Clay
© The Gissing Trust, Wakefield

Strange thing that I, all of whose joys and sorrows come from excess of individuality, should be remarkable among men for my yieldingness to everyone and anyone in daily affairs. No man I ever met habitually sacrifices his own pleasures, habits, intentions to those of a companion, purely out of fear to annoy the latter. It must be a sign of extreme weakness, and it makes me the slave of men unspeakably inferior. (George Gissing, Diary, October 1888)


A Brief Biography

GISSING, George Robert (1857-1903)
novelist; left Owens College, Manchester, in disgrace for America, where he wandered penniless until 1877; studied literature and philosophy at Jena; returned to England, 1878; published Workers in the Dawn (1880); found an appreciative reader in Frederic Harrison, to whose sons he became tutor, 1882; gained precarious livelihood by occasional journalism; published The Unclassed; (1884), Demos (1886), and other novels illustrating degrading effects of poverty on character; visited Naples, Rome, and Athens; published A Life's Morning (1888), The Nether World (1889), The Emancipated (1890), New Grub Street (1891), Born in Exile (1892), and The Odd Women (1893); revisited Italy with H. G. Wells, 1897, recording some experiences and impressions in By the Ionian Sea (1901); in Rome he found material for historical romance Veranilda (published posthumously, 1907); on return to England wrote The Town Traveller (1898) and Our Friend the Charlatan (1901); died of pneumonia at St Jean-de-Luz; other workd include critical study of Charles Dickens (1898), and The House of Cobwebs (1906).

* The Concise Dictionary of National Biography

Some of his conclusions were conservative, but at heart he was a late-Victorian rebel against the power of convention. His rebellion was muted because he was preoccupied with failure. He had collected as great a store of specialized information about people who failed as Samuel Smiles had collected of people who succeeded. (Asa Briggs, Victorian Cities)


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Gissing in Cyberspace was launched on 22 November 1995.

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