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1) Eve's Ransom
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Eve Madeley, a highly educated but poor bookkeeper, arouses the interest of Maurice Hilliard, an architect and inventor, who tries to sweep her off her feet. Though he's hardly better off financially then she, he persuades her to accompany him to Paris. Considered one of Gissing's best, this 1895 novel explores money and marriage with unusual honesty and realism.
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The author of New Grub Street turns to farce in this 1898 novel, one of his most popular during his lifetime. Our hero, Gammon, tangles with his landlady Mrs. Bubb, the shady detective Greenacre, the bigamous Lord Polperro, and young Polly Sparkes, caught up in a rollicking chase about London on New Year's Eve.
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Harvey Rolfe lives quietly on his modest inheritance at the fringe of London's social and commercial life, but tumultuous events bring Alma Frothingham into his orbit. Their contentment doesn't last long. Harvey's inability to see Alma as merely selfish rather than an emancipated "new woman," turns this story into a tale of a marriage poisoned by sexual jealousy and deceit.
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A love story, The Crown of Life was inspired by writer George Gissing's feelings for the young author Gabrielle Marie Edith Fleury, whom he met in 1898 while he was estranged from his wife Edith. Rich in detail, the narrative ends on an optimistic note-namely that happiness is possible.
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Godwin Peak is a star student at Whitelaw College. He wins many academic prizes and his future seems promising. Then his Cockney uncle arrives intending to open an eating-house adjacent to the college. Godwin is mortified of being associated with 'trade' and leaves the college rather than face the scorn he expects to receive from his upper-class fellow students.
7) Thyrza
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Thyrza Trent, a young hat-trimmer, meets and falls in love with Walter Egremont, an Oxford-trained idealist who gives lectures on literature to workers. Trapped by birth and circumstance, Thyrza is attempting to escape her destiny in this tale of ambition, romance, betrayal and disillusionment.
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Miriam Baske, a young widow, freed from the constraints of making a living, leaves behind the grey stone chapels and flinty hearts of Lancashire for the sun and artistic splendour of Italy. She meets a host of her countrymen vacationing and occupying themselves with travel, art, philosophy, romance, and improving their health.
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A cultivated poor young woman, Emily Hood, from a small town in the north of England works as a governess in a wealthy country family. She falls in love with her employer's son, Wilfrid Athel, and the two are engaged. However, during a visit to her parents' home, she is confronted by her father's employer, Dagworthy, who threatens to expose her father as a thief unless Emily marries him.
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A young wealthy gentleman looses everything in speculation and is forced into a humble life of a grocer. He finds his circumstances tragic at first and keeps his fate secret from all his friends and family. He re-considers his attitudes only when the woman with whom he is falling in love discovers he is a grocer, and throws him over.
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Richard Mutimer is a young lower-class working-man who unexpectedly inherits a large fortune. He becomes the leader of a socialist movement and decides to use his inheritance to set up a cooperative factory. However, his new wealth and power serve to highlight the defects of his character and he begins to treat his workers harshly, as well as abandoning the girl of his own station to whom he had been engaged.
12) Veranilda
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The love story is not an unrequited romance - the two lovers are aware of their feelings for each other - as much as it is an unrewarded one, for the plot revolves around keeping the two from each other, as Veranilda becomes a pawn between the competing courts of Justinian and Totila. The story of Veranilda takes place during the time of the Gothic King Totila's advance on Naples and Rome.
13) The Unclassed
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The Unclassed (1884) is a novel by George Gissing. Inspired by his own struggles as a working writer forced to take up odd jobs while failing to gain traction with critics and readers, Gissing crafts a tale of talent, ambition, and romance fallen victim to the vicissitudes of class. The Unclassed poses important questions about convention in Victorian England while proving surprisingly relevant for our own times. Struggling to make it as a lower-class...
14) The Nether World
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An exploration of the class struggle in nineteenth century London where a potential inheritance turns family and friends into desperate foes eager to escape their circumstance. A compelling story about greed, deception and the innate need to survive. Michael Snowdon lives like a pauper despite inheriting a massive fortune. He plans to leave his money to Jane, his neglected granddaughter, in hopes that she will spend it on charitable causes. Yet, Michael's...
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In the Year of Jubilee (1894) is a novel by George Gissing. Inspired by his own struggles as a working writer and unhappily married man, Gissing crafts a tale of romance and ambition that measures the dreams of one woman against the realities of an unjust society. In the Year of Jubilee poses important questions about convention in Victorian England while proving surprisingly relevant for our own times. Nancy Lord is a young, well-educated woman raised...
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"Our Friend the Charlatan" is a 1901 novel by British novelist George Gissing. The story follows Dice Lashmore, a man who will do anything he can to get rich. However, it seems to him that the most obvious thing he could do to that end would be to find a rich wife. A thought-provoking chronicle of his various attempts at courtship and eventual moral decline, "Our Friend the Charlatan" is not to be missed by fans and collectors of Gissing's seminal...
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