Workers in the Dawn

When the 22 year old George Gissing (1857 -- 1903) published his first novel in 1880, he was in the midst of a troubled life. A scholarship student at Owens College, Gissing had been expelled and served a month in prison after he had been caught stealing to support a young prostitute, Nell. Gissing then lived in the United States unhappily for a year. He returned to England and married Nell. With Nell's alcoholism, illnesses, and prostitution and the couple's repeated moves from one dreadful apartment to another, the marriage was deeply unhappy. Gissing wanted to support himself as a writer. He worked fervishly on his novel during 1879. It is, in part, a fictionalized account of his relationship with Nell. Gissing first called his book "Far, Far Away" after a street-song of the London slums quoted during the story. He later adopted the more evocative title "Workers in the Dawn." The novel was rejected by several publishers before it was accepted on condition that Gissing pay the publication and printing costs. Gissing did so using the proceeds of a small inheritance. The book sold poorly and was not reprinted until an American edition appeared in 1935. The book was reissued in 1985 and has now been reissued again in this new edition published by Victorian Secrets, edited and introduced by Debbie Harrison, and with a Preface by the leading scholar of Gissing, Pierre Coustillas. "Workers in the Dawn" was a young man's book and a first novel. It is a long and wordy book of 600 pages. Although there are some highly impressive passages much of the book is written in a prolix and sometimes stilted writing style. The plot is complex and implausible in places, relying a great deal on coincidence. Some of the climactic scenes in the novel fall flat. There are a great many characters in the book of varying degrees of development, most of whom owe a great deal to Dickens. Gissing's own voice in the story, with his observations, editorializing, and preaching tends to be intrusive. Thus, there are reasons for the neglect of this novel. With all its faults, I would not part with this book. The book is the first of a series of novels in which Gissing examined the lives of the London poor. The work is written in a tone of seriousness. It is in part a novel of ideas with broad reference to religious and social issues. It captures a degree of rootlessness and restlessness in its characters that has a modernistic tone and that Gissing would develop in his subsequent works. The book deals frankly with issues of sexuality. It is the story of people who are essentially loners. Gissing explores the tensions between a life devoted to art as compared to a life devoted either to social causes or to commercial success. The novel is deeply pessimistic. All told,it was a good effort by its struggling young author. The novel tells the story of a young man named Arthur Golding from the death of his dissolute father in the London slums when the boy was 8 until Go

First, a thank you for publisher Victorian Secrets for publishing hard to find victorian novels. I was impressed with the foward by Debbie Harrison, extensive notes and the over all quality of this book. Purchaser of Broadview Press, Zitlaw and Valancourt books will welcome this new publisher of Vitorian novels. I don't feel I can review Gissing novel with any sort of expertise. I just know what I like and this novel had all the tragedy and melodrama that makes Victorian novels so enjoyable. There is no tea parties,no grand room balls, just the gritty, dirty streets of London's poor. If you enjoy the greats, Dickens, Eliot, Collins, try George Gissing, in my opinion a overlook master.