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New Grub Street

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New Grub Street

By: George Gissing
Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
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About this listen

New Grub Street (1891) has the reputation of being George Gissing's finest novel. With bitter humour and grim realism, it tells the story of the ambitions, dreams, and disappointments of men and women struggling to earn their living as writers in the closing years of the Victorian era.

Jasper Milvain is a young writer of limited talent, eager to exploit every opportunity and social connection in order to make his way. Meanwhile, his more scholarly acquaintance Edwin Reardon may have enjoyed early success as a literary novelist, but his rigidly high standards set him at odds with the tastes of the mass market, and he seems destined for financial ruin.

For those who toil "in the valley of the shadow of books" the spectre of poverty looms large - and in the ruthlessly commercial world of New Grub Street, only those can adapt to the brutal demands of the marketplace stand a chance of finding happiness and fulfillment.

Public Domain (P)2017 Nigel Patterson Classics Genre Fiction Psychological Fiction
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'New Grub Street' is a powerful story of art & commerce, and of trying to be an artist when forces all around push one towards hackdom. Nice & depressing.

A masterpiece

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The narration is very good, but a little too bland. The novel is a marvellous description of the literary and publishing scene in the Victorian Nineties. Gissing has been unfairly neglected, and this novel merits a very high rating.

Relaxed professionalism

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