THIS IS THE DIARY JUNCTION - DATA AND LINKS FOR OVER 500 HISTORICAL AND LITERARY DIARISTS
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- freely available on this site
Gissing, George ___ 1857-1903 ___ British
___ writer
BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Gissing was born in Wakefield,
where his father was a chemist. Although apparently destined for a brilliant
academic career, he failed to complete his education at Owens College, Manchester.
This was because he became disastrously involved with a prostitute, for
whom he stole money. He was caught and imprisoned for a month. After his
release, he went to the US for a year where he undertook some literature
and philosophy studies. On returning to England in 1878 he worked both as
a tutor and a journalist while also writing and publishing novels such as
'Workers in the Dawn, 'The Unclassed' and 'Demos', which focused on the
degrading effects of poverty. He was married twice, once to the prostitute
and once to a servant girl, but neither marriage brought him happiness.
In total, he wrote over 20 novels ('New Grub Street' and 'The Odd Women'
being among the most well known), some of which, with a writer as the main
character, were quite autobiographical. He also also wrote more than a hundred
short stories, literary criticism, essays, and many letters. Commentators
say there is an unrepentant gloom about much of his writing. He travelled
abroad several times; and, on one journey to Italy, was accompanied by H
G Wells. In the last decade of his life, Gissing became involved with Clara
Collet, who helped take care of him and his two children, but who was then
disappointed when Gissing fell in love with a Gabrielle Fleury, a French
woman.
One
biography link
DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1887-1902 ___ literary social travel
self Italy France
WEB TEXT LINKS
one
long extract
ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
London and the Life of Literature
in Late Victorian England - The Diary of George Gissing
May 2005
THIS IS THE DIARY JUNCTION - DATA AND LINKS FOR OVER 500 HISTORICAL AND LITERARY DIARISTS
Please
email if you have any corrections, additions or comments. |
IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS:
1) The first line of basic information
may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different
names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or
uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown,
or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British'
a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was
compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts
were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if
they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates
and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with
caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are
only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies.
4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges,
and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising.
I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some
variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited
myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their
original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the
titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries. |