New Grub Street by George Gissing (best mobile ebook reader .txt) 📕
Description
Grub Street is the name of a former street in London synonymous with pulp writers and low-quality publishers. New Grub Street takes its name from that old street, as it follows the lives and endeavors of a group of writers active in the literary scene of 1880s London.
Edwin Reardon is a quiet and intelligent writer whose artistic sensibilities are the opposite of what the London public wants to read. He’s forced to write long, joyless novels that he thinks pop publishers will want to buy. These novels are draining to write, yet result in meager sales; soon Edwin’s increasingly small bank account, and his stubborn pride, start to put a strain on his once-happy marriage.
His best friend, Biffen, lies to one side of Edwin’s nature: as another highly-educated writer, he accepts a dingy, lonely, and hungry life of abject poverty in exchange for being able to produce a novel that’s true to his artistic desires but is unlikely to sell. On the other side lies Jasper Milvain, an “alarmingly modern” writer laser-focused on earning as much money as possible no matter what he’s made to write, as he floats through the same literary circles that Edwin haunts.
The intricately-told tale follows these writers as their differing outlooks and their fluctuating ranks in society affect them and the people around them. Gissing, himself a prolific writer intimately familiar with the London literary scene, draws from his own life in laying out the characters and events in the novel. He carefully elaborates the fragile social fabric of the literary world, its paupers and its barons both equal in the industry but unequal in public life. Though the novel is about writers on the face, the deep thread that runs through it all is the brutality of the modern social structure, where the greedy and superficial are rewarded with stability and riches, while the delicate and thoughtful are condemned to live on the margins of respectable society in grimy poverty, robbed not only of dignity, but of love.
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- Author: George Gissing
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“It seems to me,” he remarked several times, “that the fellow only does his bare duty in sending it. What is it to anyone else whether he lives on twelve shillings a week or twelve pence? It is his business to support his wife; if he can’t do that, to contribute as much to her support as possible. Amy’s scruples are all very fine, if she could afford them; it’s very nice to pay for your delicacies of feeling out of other people’s pockets.”
“There’ll have to be a formal separation,” was the startling announcement with which Amy answered her mother’s inquiry as to what had passed.
“A separation? But, my dear—!”
Mrs. Yule could not express her disappointment and dismay.
“We couldn’t live together; it’s no use trying.”
“But at your age, Amy! How can you think of anything so shocking? And then, you know it will be impossible for him to make you a sufficient allowance.”
“I shall have to live as well as I can on the seventy-five pounds a year. If you can’t afford to let me stay with you for that, I must go into cheap lodgings in the country, like poor Mrs. Butcher did.”
This was wild talking for Amy. The interview had upset her, and for the rest of the day she kept apart in her own room. On the morrow Mrs. Yule succeeded in eliciting a clear account of the conversation which had ended so hopelessly.
“I would rather spend the rest of my days in the workhouse than beg him to take me back,” was Amy’s final comment, uttered with the earnestness which her mother understood but too well.
“But you are willing to go back, dear?”
“I told him so.”
“Then you must leave this to me. The Carters will let us know how things go on, and when it seems to be time I must see Edwin myself.”
“I can’t allow that. Anything you could say on your own account would be useless, and there is nothing to say from me.”
Mrs. Yule kept her own counsel. She had a full month before her during which to consider the situation, but it was clear to her that these young people must be brought together again. Her estimate of Reardon’s mental condition had undergone a sudden change from the moment when she heard that a respectable post was within his reach; she decided that he was “strange,” but then all men of literary talent had marked singularities, and doubtless she had been too hasty in interpreting the peculiar features natural to a character such as his.
A few days later arrived the news of their relative’s death at Wattleborough.
This threw Mrs. Yule into a commotion. At first she decided to accompany her son and be present at the funeral; after changing her mind twenty times, she determined not to go. John must send or bring back the news as soon as possible. That it would be of a nature sensibly to affect her own position, if not that of her children, she had little doubt; her husband had been the favourite brother of the deceased, and on that account there was no saying how handsome a legacy she might receive. She dreamt of houses in South Kensington, of social ambitions gratified even thus late.
On the morning after the funeral came a postcard announcing John’s return by a certain train, but no scrap of news was added.
“Just like that irritating boy! We must go to the station to meet him. You’ll come, won’t you, Amy?”
Amy readily consented, for she too had hopes, though circumstances blurred them. Mother and daughter were walking about the platform half an hour before the train was due; their agitation would have been manifest to anyone observing them. When at length the train rolled in and John was discovered, they pressed eagerly upon him.
“Don’t you excite yourself,” he said gruffly to his mother. “There’s no reason whatever.”
Mrs. Yule glanced in dismay at Amy. They followed John to a cab, and took places with him.
“Now don’t be provoking, Jack. Just tell us at once.”
“By all means. You haven’t a penny.”
“I haven’t? You are joking, ridiculous boy!”
“Never felt less disposed to, I assure you.”
After staring out of the window for a minute or two, he at length informed Amy of the extent to which she profited by her uncle’s decease, then made known what was bequeathed to himself. His temper grew worse every moment, and he replied savagely to each successive question concerning the other items of the will.
“What have you to grumble about?” asked Amy, whose face was exultant notwithstanding the drawbacks attaching to her good fortune. “If Uncle Alfred receives nothing at all, and mother has nothing, you ought to think yourself very lucky.”
“It’s very easy for you to say that, with your ten thousand.”
“But is it her own?” asked Mrs. Yule. “Is it for her separate use?”
“Of course it is. She gets the benefit of last year’s Married Woman’s Property Act. The will was executed in January this year, and I dare say the old curmudgeon destroyed a former one.
“What a splendid Act of Parliament that is!” cried Amy. “The only one worth anything that I ever heard of.”
“But my dear—” began her mother, in a tone of protest. However, she reserved her comment for a more fitting time and place, and merely said: “I wonder whether he had heard what has been going on?”
“Do you think he would have altered his will if he had?” asked Amy with a smile of security.
“Why the deuce he should have left you so much in any case is more than I can understand,” growled her brother. “What’s the use to me of a paltry thousand or two? It isn’t enough to invest; isn’t enough to do anything with.”
“You may depend upon it your cousin Marian thinks her five thousand good for something,” said Mrs. Yule. “Who was
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