Their Portraits in My Books

James Haydock

Description

George Gissing's books, published during the last two decades of the nineteenth century, are memorable for their portraits of women. Only a few women played active roles in his life, but those who did exerted a lasting influence. In each of his novels he portrayed women vividly and with unerring realism. He worried, in fact, that some might see themselves in his books and rebuke him. His portraits of women are warm and human, revealing an essential sympathy that makes them timeless. An important feature of his novels, his feminine portraiture is worth careful study.

Sujets

• Teaching
• Study
• George Gissing
• Art

Informations

• Publié par: AuthorHouse
• Date de parution: 30 janvier 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781728378695
• Langue: English

Extrait

Their Portraits in My Books
 
The Fiction of George Gissing
 
 
 
a critical study by
James Haydock
 
 
 

 
 
AuthorHouse™
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© 2023 James Haydock. All rights reserved.
 
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
 
Published by AuthorHouse 01/30/2023
 
ISBN: 978-1-7283-7861-9 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-7283-7869-5 (e)
 
 
 
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
 
Also by James Haydock
 
Portraits in Charcoal: George Gissing’s Women
Stormbirds
Victorian Sages
On a Darkling Plain: Victorian Poetry and Thought
Beacon’s River
Against the Grain
Mose in Bondage
Searching in Shadow: Victorian Prose and Thought
A Tinker in Blue Anchor
The Woman Question and George Gissing
Of Time and Tide: the Windhover Saga
But Not Without Hope
I, Jonathan Blue
The Inward Journey: Original Short Stories
Cayenne Heat: A Novel Based on Real Events
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
“Strange this friendly association with
people. It would be awkward if they came
to recognize their portraits in my b ooks!”
— George to Margaret, June 13, 1886
Contents
Chapter 1     His Study of Women
Chapter 2     Marianne Helen Harrison
Chapter 3     Nell’s Influence on Gissing
Chapter 4     Working Women and Factory Girls
Chapter 5     Mrs. Gaussen’s Friendship
Chapter 6     Edith Sichel and Her Influence
Chapter 7     The Sisters Ellen and Margaret
Chapter 8     Odd Superfluous Women
Chapter 9     Teachers From Low to High
Chapter 10   Edith Underwood
Chapter 11   Edith and Domestic Life
Chapter 12   Edith’s Enormous Influence
Chapter 13   Rebellious Wives and Edith
Chapter 14   Marriage and the Servant Problem
Chapter 15   The Woman Question and Gissing
Chapter 16   The New Woman and More
Chapter 17   With Time Comes Change
Chapter 18   Gabrielle Marie Edith Fleury
Chapter 19   Gabrielle Fleury and the Quest
Chapter 20   Marriage to Gabrielle Fleury
A George Gissing Chronology
A List of Gissing’s Novels
A List of Female Characters

Chapter One
His Study of Women
“I have by no means completed my study
of women yet. It is one of the things in which
I hope to be a specialist some day.”
S peaking through Jasper Milvain, a young writer in New Grub Street , George Gissing was thinking of his own goals as a novelist and the reputation he hoped to achieve within a decade. All his life, though often from a distance, he had studied women. Now at thirty-four, in well-crafted fiction, he was becoming an expert in the portrayal of girls and women. His interest in their world is seen as early as his first novel, Workers in the Dawn (1880), as well as in the early short stories of the 1870’s. His unique insight is shown in every novel published during the 1890’s, indeed in all of twenty-three novels. A casual reader, leafing through one of a Gissing’s books, will find an assortment of female characters carefully positioned to advance theme and plot. A more serious reader will see Gissing trying to understand the women of his generation and trying to present them with unerring realism.
If you examine Gissing’s female charactiers as they relate to his life, you will discover an important aspect of his work. His novels, published during the last two decades of the nineteenth century, are memorable for their detailed portraits of women. As a young man, as a mature novelist, even as a classical scholar, a persistent intellectual pursuit for Gissing was the study of women. With meticulous attention he observed them in his daily life wherever he happened to be. When reading about women, he jotted down notes in a miniscule handwriting not easily deciphered. His books, several of which bear women’s names for titles, present female characters with frankness never seen before in Victorian novels. Even though women in Gissing’s life were relatively few, each to a person exerted a lasting influence upon his work.
The woman at the center of George Gissing’s early work, the one who exerted the most influence without knowing why, was Marianne Helen Harrison, a prostitute he met when a student in Manchester. He stole money from classmates to support her and left the college in disgrace to live in America for a year. On returning, she became his wife in a London slum in 1879. In that year he wrote his first novel. His presentation of prostitution as a social issue in the novels of the 1880’s, originates with the woman he referred to as Nell. It is doubtful that his personal behavior at this time went beyond the relationship with Nell. Yet poverty made him the alien neighbor of those women who walked the streets at night to sell their bodies in tough economic times.
As Nell disappointed him again and again, he came to believe she was a victim of heredity rather than that of an uncaring society. She was, therefore, naturally unregenerate. But in 1888, viewing Nell in death, he felt a powerful resurgence of pity for her wasted life, and it brought a change of heart. He vowed he would battle against a corrupt society that permitted in spite of its wealth the exploitation of women. Although his opinions on this subject vacillated through the years, he continued to view prostitution as an ugly and destructive disease.
By 1884 Nell had yielded once more to her fondness for alcohol, had drifted away from Gissing’s protective hearth, and had become a prostitute again. Her husband lived alone in poverty, but continued to write when he could steal the time from his tutoring. His second novel, The Unclassed , was published in that year. Soon afterwards, solely by chance, he found himself in the midst of cultivated people of leisure. To augment his spare income, he began to tutor the children of Mrs. David Gaussen, a wealthy and traveled woman who became a close friend. At a formative and vulnerable time in his career she came into his life to exert an important and lasting influence.
For a time Gissing gave up entirely the novel of social purpose, the genre he hoped to found his career upon, to write a novel in tribute to Gaussen. He titled the book Isabel Clarendon , and it was published in 1886. His new friend had become the model for the superlative main character. She had charmed the young author into idealizing the women of her world. Wealthy women in later novels also show the woman’s influence. Years later his memory of Mrs. Gausssen inspired a gallery of captivating older women; They were mature yet alive and sensitive. He labeled them “women of the world.”
In the summer of 1889, five years after he became the friend of Mrs. Gaussen, Gissing established correspondence with another woman of wealth and refinement. Her name was Edith Sichel. Though Sichel was younger, she lacked the grace and charm of Mrs. Gaussen. Also she wasn’t as feminine, a quality Gissing prized. Her influence helped him shape his concept of “the New Woman.” Her impact as well may be seen in the novel he published shortly after meeting her, The Emancipated. Her influence extended with less force into New Grub Street , for he wasn’t impressed by her career as a writer. In that novel Marian Yule finds writing for periodicals unpleasant. Though under the thumb of a demanding and domineering father, Marian gathers the strength to escape “the beastly scrimmage.” Gissing has Bertha Childerstone, also a rare journalist, become less feminine as she competes in a tough and unforgiving profession.
In Workers in the Dawn , his first novel, a main character is named Helen Norman. Sensible and cerebral but stuffy, staid, and pedantic, she declares that “such work is not woman’s true sphere.” Only ambitious Ada Warren in Isabel Clarendon seems fitted to become a true woman of letters. Gissing believed that women were as capable as men when it came to puting words on paper -- he had great respect for Charlotte Brontë -- but writing articles for a pittance seemed more commercial than creative. One did it to earn a living, not to advance the arts or achieve recognition. Wealthy Edith Sichel was not in the market for gainful employment. She was seeking personal satisfaction, rather than recognition, when she tried her hand at writing. So Gissing thought her attempts to publish were little more than a hobby. Her philanthropic work, while impressive, was also of questionable value. He liked Edith Sichel and respected her as an educated heiress, but he would never show more than a passing interest in her.
His sisters, Ellen and Margaret, also exerted influence on his work. As a novelist seeking to create realistic feminine characters, he turned inevitably to the people close to him. He viewed his younger sisters as unliberated women bound by narrow religious dogma. They were not able to become liberated because of their stultifying code of morality based on puritanical teachings. In many long letters he offered them careful and patient instruction but without notable success. They never marrie