New Grub Street

In the literary slums of 1880s London, two writers face a question no artist wants to answer: create meaningful work, or eat today? Edwin Reardon has principles. His novel is good, his critical reputation solid, but his bank account is empty. His wife Amy measures his worth in guineas he cannot earn. Meanwhile, Jasper Milvain, the man Edwin once called a friend, understands the game. He'll write what sells, flatter whom he must, and sleep soundly in a warm bed. As both men descend into the grinding poverty and petty cruelties of Grub Street, Gissing charts the slow murder of idealism with the precision of an autopsy. The novel drips with dark irony: writers who cannot afford to write, critics who review spitefully because they're paid to, marriages that collapse under the weight of a shillings. This is no nostalgic period piece. The battle between art and commerce, between integrity and survival, has only grown uglier since Gissing wrote it from his own garret.