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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Midway in October, about half-past eight one evening, Jasper received an unexpected visit from Dora. He was in his sitting-room, smoking and reading a novel.
“Anything wrong?” he asked, as his sister entered.
“No; but I’m alone this evening, and I thought I would see if you were in.”
“Where’s Maud, then?”
“She went to see the Lanes this afternoon, and Mrs. Lane invited her to go to the Gaiety tonight; she said a friend whom she had invited couldn’t come, and the ticket would be wasted. Maud went back to dine with them. She’ll come home in a cab.”
“Why is Mrs. Lane so affectionate all at once? Take your things off; I have nothing to do.”
“Miss Radway was going as well.”
“Who’s Miss Radway?”
“Don’t you know her? She’s staying with the Lanes. Maud says she writes for The West End.”
“And will that fellow Lane be with them?”
“I think not.”
Jasper mused, contemplating the bowl of his pipe.
“I suppose she was in rare excitement?”
“Pretty well. She has wanted to go to the Gaiety for a long time. There’s no harm, is there?”
Dora asked the question with that absent air which girls are wont to assume when they touch on doubtful subjects.
“Harm, no. Idiocy and lively music, that’s all. It’s too late, or I’d have taken you, for the joke of the thing. Confound it! she ought to have better dresses.”
“Oh, she looked very nice, in that best.”
“Pooh! But I don’t care for her to be running about with the Lanes. Lane is too big a blackguard; it reflects upon his wife to a certain extent.”
They gossiped for half an hour, then a tap at the door interrupted them; it was the landlady.
“Mr. Whelpdale has called to see you, sir. I mentioned as Miss Milvain was here, so he said he wouldn’t come up unless you sent to ask him.”
Jasper smiled at Dora, and said in a low voice.
“What do you say? Shall he come up? He can behave himself.”
“Just as you please, Jasper.”
“Ask him to come up, Mrs. Thompson, please.”
Mr. Whelpdale presented himself. He entered with much more ceremony than when Milvain was alone; on his visage was a grave respectfulness, his step was light, his whole bearing expressed diffidence and pleasurable anticipation.
“My younger sister, Whelpdale,” said Jasper, with subdued amusement.
The dealer in literary advice made a bow which did him no discredit, and began to speak in a low, reverential tone not at all disagreeable to the ear. His breeding, in truth, had been that of a gentleman, and it was only of late years that he had fallen into the hungry region of New Grub Street.
“How’s the Manual going off?” Milvain inquired.
“Excellently! We have sold nearly six hundred.”
“My sister is one of your readers. I believe she has studied the book with much conscientiousness.”
“Really? You have really read it, Miss Milvain?”
Dora assured him that she had, and his delight knew no bounds.
“It isn’t all rubbish, by any means,” said Jasper, graciously. “In the chapter on writing for magazines, there are one or two very good hints. What a pity you can’t apply your own advice, Whelpdale!”
“Now that’s horribly unkind of you!” protested the other. “You might have spared me this evening. But unfortunately it’s quite true, Miss Milvain. I point the way, but I haven’t been able to travel it myself. You mustn’t think I have never succeeded in getting things published; but I can’t keep it up as a profession. Your brother is the successful man. A marvellous facility! I envy him. Few men at present writing have such talent.”
“Please don’t make him more conceited than he naturally is,” interposed Dora.
“What news of Biffen?” asked Jasper, presently.
“He says he shall finish Mr. Bailey, Grocer, in about a month. He read me one of the later chapters the other night. It’s really very fine; most remarkable writing, it seems to me. It will be scandalous if he can’t get it published; it will, indeed.”
“I do hope he may!” said Dora, laughing. “I have heard so much of Mr. Bailey, that it will be a great disappointment if I am never to read it.”
“I’m afraid it would give you very little pleasure,” Whelpdale replied, hesitatingly. “The matter is so very gross.”
“And the hero grocer!” shouted Jasper, mirthfully. “Oh, but it’s quite decent; only rather depressing. The decently ignoble—or, the ignobly decent? Which is Biffen’s formula? I saw him a week ago, and he looked hungrier than ever.”
“Ah, but poor Reardon! I passed him at King’s Cross not long ago. He didn’t see me—walks with his eyes on the ground always—and I hadn’t the courage to stop him. He’s the ghost of his old self. He can’t live long.”
Dora and her brother exchanged a glance. It was a long time since Jasper had spoken to his sisters about the Reardons; nowadays he seldom heard either of husband or wife.
The conversation that went on was so agreeable to Whelpdale, that he lost consciousness of time. It was past eleven o’clock when Jasper felt obliged to remind him.
“Dora, I think I must be taking you home.”
The visitor at once made ready for departure, and his leave-taking was as respectful as his entrance had been. Though he might not say what he thought, there was very legible
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