Gissing

[gis-ing]

noun

1. George (Robert), 1857–1903, English novelist.

Gissing

/ ˈɡɪsɪŋ /

noun

1. George ( Robert ). 1857–1903, English novelist, noted for his depiction of middle-class poverty. His works include Demos (1886) and New Grub Street (1891)

Example Sentences

Gissing had made a terrible hash of his early life.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

George Orwell called Gissing “perhaps the best novelist England has produced,” and the Guardian included “New Grub Street” on its 2015 list of the 100 best English-language novels.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

By the late-19th century, “Grub Street” had become a generic term for ambitious, worldly—and mostly talentless—writers, everything the classicist Gissing abhorred.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

“New Grub Street” is just as crowded as most Victorian novels, and Gissing drew its women—Reardon’s wife, Amy, who loves his work but cannot abide his penury; Milvain’s sister, Dora, a prototype of the emancipated woman that would soon lead to suffragism—with unusual care and insight.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Virginia Woolf’s comment that “we establish a personal rather than an artistic relationship” with Gissing is sometimes considered a putdown, but she clearly established that personal relationship herself, and contributed an introduction to an early collection of his work.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal