George Gissing

Born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, in 1857, George Gissing first seemed headed for an academic career, but his life took a dramatic turn while he was a student. That early setback shaped much of the hard experience and social realism that later gave his fiction its distinctive force.

Gissing became one of the most observant novelists of late 19th-century England. His work often follows clerks, struggling intellectuals, and women facing narrow choices, and it is especially remembered for its unsentimental picture of London literary life in New Grub Street and for the social questions raised in The Odd Women.

He spent much of his career writing under financial pressure, yet he produced a body of work that has lasted well beyond his lifetime. He died in 1903, and is still read for the way he combined sympathy, wit, and a clear view of the social pressures of his age.