Introduction
George Robert Gissing (1857-1903) is listed among the most important writers in thelate-19thcentury. Although he never achieved an overwhelming commercial or criticalsuccess, he has found a niche in literary history for zealous attention to the social changesof England and artistic appeal featuring classic solemn and realistic sober. Gissingexplored a variety of themes in the twenty-three long fictions he created from 1880 to 1903and demonstrated unique concern for literary men in two of his masterpieces, New GrubStreet (1891) and The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft (1903).New Grub Street, a literary panorama of the late-Victorian period, has securedGissing‘s reputation as one of the greatest novelists of his era as Thomas Hardy andGeorge Meredith. The novel crowned ―an ancestor of the novel of our time‖ (Leavis,1938:79) has gained much public and critic recognition since it was born. It‘s alsoGissing‘s first work to be published in mainland China.1 Critical Contexts of George GissingGissing‘s dramatic life marked by academic superiority of the youth, disgrace of theftand self- exile along with two disastrous marriages, has triggered exhaustless interestamong the critics. His literary writings are often viewed as a projection of his experiences.Gissing showed a ―divided mind‖ in private life: on one side, he‘s closely related tothe intellectual circle; on the other side, his choice of ―psychologically, intellectually, andsocially unsuitable women‖ ruined his happiness yet inspired creation (Eakin, 2010:1274).In profession, his novels were never favorites of the Victorian publishers and massaudiences because of bleak story and dismal atmosphere. There are found in his writingsthe traces of the realistic spirit of Charles Dickens, the naturalistic technique of èmile Zola,and the psychological portraits of Russian writers, but not of the flamboyant form orpicturesque humor. He is such a ―personal‖ author as Thomas Seccombe‘s commented:In the recent decades, Gissing has received reassessment from the critics who are attractedto the paradoxical charm in his life and books.
1.1 Gissing Study in the West and China
Despite a moderate fame in his lifetime, Gissing‘s reputation went down to obscuritysoon after his death. It‘s not until 1960‘s that a renaissance came up. The critics finallyrender high recognition to Gissing as a serious novelist ―both for his historic role in theheyday of English realism and for his integrity as an individual novelist.‖ (Eakin, 2010:1276).Three Major Periods of Gissing Study in the WestIn the West, the critical study on Gissing can be roughly divided into three periods:1910s-1940s, 1950s-1990s and the 21stcentury.During the first period (1910s-1940s), criticism most concentrated on Gissing‘sliterary style and standpoint. After his death in 1903, some writers including MorleyRoberts, Austin Harrison, H.G. Wells and Gissing‘s family provided his biographicalreviews and personal sketches, of which the most influential work came from FrankSwinnerton, the author of Gissing‘s first complete biography (1912). In the book, hepointed out Gissing‘s critical opinion on plot - he ―avoided exaggeration and drama…and aclimax is instantly smothered‖, but as compensation his stories are elaborately structured(Swinnerton, 1912:166-167). Gissing was commonly labeled as a realist, but Stanley Aldendidn‘t fully consent because he found the ―‖humanistic‖ quality of Gissing graduallydrifted his writing away from the ―larger social problems‖ that he began with after ―hefound them insoluable…to the basic problem of men‘s nature and its betterment‖ (Alden,1922:373). Normal Daley described Gissing as ―a strong individualist‖ and argued thatscholarship greatly benefited ―his technical equipment as a writer‖, but it caused hisobsession with ―the attainment of perfection‖ (Daley, 1942:30). Gissing also has audienceamong modern novelists of the early 20thcentury. George Orwell regards his novels as ―aprotest against the fo
