New Grub Street (1891), generally regarded as Gissing's finest novel, is the story of the daily lives and broken dreams of men and women forced to earn a living by the pen. With vivid realism it tells of a group of novelists, journalists, and scholars caught in the literary and cultural crisis that hit Britain in the closing years of the nineteenth century, as universal education, popular journalism, and mass communication began to leave their mark on the life of intellectuals.

The once despised commercial hacks of Grub Street are now in the ascendant, and there is little call for writing of artistic merit. Sensitive novelist Edwin Reardon thought his reputation was safe, but poverty undermines his temperament and he finds it increasingly difficult to produce anything marketable. As his fortunes dwindle his marriage founders, and the future belongs to such as Jasper Milvain, a self-seeking writer of facile reviews who has no real interest in literature as an art form but thrives by manipulating public opinion. Gissing's bleak vision is rendered with masterly brilliance.

I A Man of his Day

II The House of Yule

III Holiday

IV An Author and his Wife

V The Way Hither

VI The Practical Friend

VII Marian's Home

VIII To the Winning Side

IX Invita Minerva

X The Friends of the Family

XI Respite

XII Work Without Hope

XIII A Warning

XIV Recruits

XV The Last Resource

XVI Rejection

XVII The Parting

XVIII The Old Home

XIX The Past Revived

XX The End of Waiting

XXI Mr Yule Leaves Town

XXII The Legatees

XXIII A Proposed Investment

XXIV Fasper's Magnanimity

XXV A Fruitless Meeting

XXVI Married Woman's Property

XXVII The Lonely Man

XXVIII Interim

XXIX Catastrophe

XXX Waiting on Destiny

XXXI A Rescue and a Summons

XXXII Reardon Becomes Practical

XXXIII The Sunny Way

XXXIV A Check

XXXV Fever and Rest

XXXVI Fasper's Delicate Case

XXXVII Rewards