The Collected Letters of George Gissing Volume 5: 1892-1895 (Volume 5) (Collected Letters Gissing)

Gissings career, which spanned the period of about 1877 to his death in 1903, was characterized by prodigious output (almost a novel a year in the early days), modest recognition, and modest income. He wrote of poverty, socialism, class differences, social reform, and later on, about the problems of women and industrialization. His best known works are New Grub Street (1891) and Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft (1903), rich sources of social commentary that reflect a literary transition from the Victorian to the modern period. For many years, the only Gissing letters available to the public were those in the modest selection of letters to his family published in 1927. Now the editors have culled widely scattered sourcesprivate and public collections, journals, newspapers, memoirs, biographies, and sales catalogsto gather and organize Gissings correspondence, including letters to him, and to provide an editorial context. The years 1892-1895 saw an increase in the bulk and scope of Gissings literary production, coinciding with his new and cordial association with publishers Bullen and Lawrence. During this period, the partners published Denzil Quarrier , The Odd Women , In the Year of Jubilee , ad Eves Ransom , while A. and C. Black brought out Born in Exile . Gissings correspondence with his publishers, some of which is printed here for the first time, is matched in significance by his letters to his literary agent William Morris Colles and to editors such as Clement Shorter, who were instrumental in turning Gissing to the short story. His domestic life remained his unfortunate marriage ruled out the possibility of satisfactory social relationships, and his anxiety over the care of his son Walter was eased only by sending the infant away to stay with strangers. New friends, especially Clara Collet and Edward Clodd, were a precious assetin their presence he could be his better self, a highly cultured, joy-loving individual whose work was finding greater favor with the public. For many years, the only Gissing letters available to the public were those in the modest selection of letters to his family published in 1927. In the following years a good number were published separately in such places as journals, memoirs, and sales catalogues, but like the single and small groups of unpublished letters scattered in libraries around the world, they remained in practical terms inaccessible. Even though in recent years small groups of letters to individual correspondents have come into print, the rapidly growing numbers of Gissing readers and scholars now feel the need for access to his letters in an edition comparable to those of his contemporary novelist friends, Thomas Hardy and Joseph Conrad. In this edition, all the Gissing letters that could be found, published and unpublished, have been brought together from all known sources: private and public collections, journals, newspapers, memoirs, biographies, and sales catalogues. The important advantage is not only that they have at last been brought together, but also that they are placed chronologically and given a uniform editorial context which provides a coherence lacking in letters separately published. A significant feature of this edition is that it also contains, whenever they are available, letters to Gissing which are of great help in recording his life during the times when his own letters have been lost or destroyed. With the recent publication of Gissing's diary, his commonplace book, and other smaller pieces, this edition becomes the final major publication of Gissing papers known to exist, and certainly the most significant record of his life, his mind, and his art. It will be of crucial importance to any future biographers, and of the greatest value to those who want to study Gissing's novels in relation to his life v. 1. 1863-1880 v. 2. 1881-1885 v. 3. 1886-1888 v. 4. 1889-1891 v. 5. 1892-1895 v. 6. 1895-1897 v. 7. 1897-1899 v. 8. 1900-1902 v. 9. 1902-1903.