New Grub Street

New Grub Street is set in the literary and journalistic circles of 1880s London. In the 18th century, Grub Street became synonymous with hack literature, and though the street no longer existed in 1880s, hack-writing certainly did. The two central characters are a sharply contrasted pair of writers: Edwin Reardon, a novelist of some talent but limited commercial prospects, and a shy, cerebral man; and Jasper Milvain, a young journalist, hard-working and capable of generosity, but cynical and only semi-scrupulous about writing and its purpose in the late Victorian world.

George Gissing (1857-1903) was a British novelist who also worked as a teacher and tutor throughout his life. Gissing's early novels were not well received, but he achieved greater recognition in the 1890s, both in England and overseas. The novels written at this time depicted the life of the working class. The increase in popularity was linked not just to his novels, but to his friendships with influential and respected literary figures such as the journalist Henry Norman, author J. M. Barrie and writer and critic Edmund Gosse. By the end of the 19th century, critics placed him alongside Thomas Hardy and George Meredith as one of the three leading novelists in England. Gissing's best known novels include New Grub Street, The Odd Women and The Nether World.