New Grub Street by George Gissing (best mobile ebook reader .txt) ๐
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. Heโs 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 Edwinโs 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 Edwinโs 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 thatโs true to his artistic desires but is unlikely to sell. On the other side lies Jasper Milvain, an โalarmingly modernโ writer laser-focused on earning as much money as possible no matter what heโs 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.
Read free book ยซNew Grub Street by George Gissing (best mobile ebook reader .txt) ๐ยป - read online or download for free at americanlibrarybooks.com
- Author: George Gissing
Read book online ยซNew Grub Street by George Gissing (best mobile ebook reader .txt) ๐ยป. Author - George Gissing
โItโs very good news,โ answered Marian.
โI should think so! Ho, ho!โ
Mr. Quarmby laughed in a peculiar way, which was the result of long years of mirth-subdual in the Reading-room.
โBut not a breath to anyone but your father. Heโll be here tomorrow? Break it gently to him, you know; heโs an excitable man; canโt take things quietly, like I do. Ho, ho!โ
His suppressed laugh ended in a fit of coughingโ โthe Reading-room cough. When he had recovered from it, he pressed Marianโs hand with paternal fervour, and waddled off to chatter with someone else.
Marian replaced several books on the reference-shelves, returned others to the central desk, and was just leaving the room, when again a voice made demand upon her attention.
โMiss Yule! One moment, if you please!โ
It was a tall, meagre, dry-featured man, dressed with the painful neatness of self-respecting poverty: the edges of his coat-sleeves were carefully darned; his black necktie and a skullcap which covered his baldness were evidently of home manufacture. He smiled softly and timidly with blue, rheumy eyes. Two or three recent cuts on his chin and neck were the result of conscientious shaving with an unsteady hand.
โI have been looking for your father,โ he said, as Marian turned. โIsnโt he here?โ
โHe has gone, Mr. Hinks.โ
โAh, then would you do me the kindness to take a book for him? In fact, itโs my little Essay on the Historical Drama, just out.โ
He spoke with nervous hesitation, and in a tone which seemed to make apology for his existence.
โOh, father will be very glad to have it.โ
โIf you will kindly wait one minute, Miss Yule. Itโs at my place over there.โ
He went off with long strides, and speedily came back panting, in his hand a thin new volume.
โMy kind regards to him, Miss Yule. You are quite well, I hope? I wonโt detain you.โ
And he backed into a man who was coming inobservantly this way.
Marian went to the ladiesโ cloakroom, put on her hat and jacket, and left the Museum. Someone passed out through the swing-door a moment before her, and as soon as she had issued beneath the portico, she saw that it was Jasper Milvain; she must have followed him through the hall, but her eyes had been cast down. The young man was now alone; as he descended the steps he looked to left and right, but not behind him. Marian followed at a distance of two or three yards. Nearing the gateway, she quickened her pace a little, so as to pass out into the street almost at the same moment as Milvain. But he did not turn his head.
He took to the right. Marian had fallen back again, but she still followed at a very little distance. His walk was slow, and she might easily have passed him in quite a natural way; in that case he could not help seeing her. But there was an uneasy suspicion in her mind that he really must have noticed her in the Reading-room. This was the first time she had seen him since their parting at Finden. Had he any reason for avoiding her? Did he take it ill that her father had shown no desire to keep up his acquaintance?
She allowed the interval between them to become greater. In a minute or two Milvain turned up Charlotte Street, and so she lost sight of him.
In Tottenham Court Road she waited for an omnibus that would take her to the remoter part of Camden Town; obtaining a corner seat, she drew as far back as possible, and paid no attention to her fellow-passengers. At a point in Camden Road she at length alighted, and after ten minutesโ walk reached her destination in a quiet byway called St. Paulโs Crescent, consisting of small, decent houses. That at which she paused had an exterior promising comfort within; the windows were clean and neatly curtained, and the polishable appurtenances of the door gleamed to perfection. She admitted herself with a latchkey, and went straight upstairs without encountering anyone.
Descending again in a few moments, she entered the front room on the ground-floor. This served both as parlour and dining-room; it was comfortably furnished, without much attempt at adornment. On the walls were a few autotypes and old engravings. A recess between fireplace and window was fitted with shelves, which supported hundreds of volumes, the overflow of Yuleโs library. The table was laid for a meal. It best suited the convenience of the family to dine at five oโclock; a long evening, so necessary to most literary people, was thus assured. Marian, as always when she had spent a day at the Museum, was faint with weariness and hunger; she cut a small piece of bread from a loaf on the table, and sat down in an easy chair.
Presently appeared a short, slight woman of middle age, plainly dressed in serviceable grey. Her face could never have been very comely, and it expressed but moderate intelligence; its lines, however, were those of gentleness and good feeling. She had the look of one who is making a painful effort to understand something; this was fixed upon her features, and probably resulted from the peculiar conditions of her life.
โRather early, arenโt you, Marian?โ she said, as she closed the door and came forward to take a seat.
โYes; I have a little headache.โ
โOh, dear! Is that beginning again?โ
Mrs. Yuleโs speech was seldom ungrammatical, and her intonation was not flagrantly vulgar, but the accent of the London poor, which brands as with hereditary baseness, still clung to her words, rendering futile such propriety of phrase as she owed to years of association with educated people. In the same degree did her bearing fall short of that which distinguishes a lady. The London work-girl is rarely capable of raising herself, or being raised, to a place in life above that to which she was born; she cannot learn how to stand and sit and move like a woman bred to
Comments (0)