#george gissing

[blackswaneuroparedux]

London is a city where everyone is reaching out to create a future.

George Gissing, The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft (1903)

Piccadilly Circus, London, 1910.

[j-august]

Money is a great fortifier of self-respect.

George Gissing, New Grub Street

[julesofnature]

 “The mere chink of cups and saucers tunes the mind to happy repose.”  ~George Gissing

[calabria-mediterranea]

"Last night the wind changed and the sky began to clear; this morning I awoke in sunshine, and with a feeling of eagerness for my journey. I shall look upon the Ionian Sea, not merely from a train or a steamboat as before, but at long leisure: I shall see the shores where once were Tarentum and Sybaris, Croton and Locri. Every man has his intellectual desire; mine is to escape life as I know it and dream myself into that old world which was the imaginative delight of my boyhood. The names of Greece and Italy draw me as no others; they make me young again, and restore the keen impressions of that time when every new page of Greek or Latin was a new perception of things beautiful. The world of the Greeks and Romans is my land of romance; a quotation in either language thrills me strangely, and there are passages of Greek and Latin verse which I cannot read without a dimming of the eyes, which I cannot repeat aloud because my voice fails me. In Magna Graecia the waters of two fountains mingle and flow together; how exquisite will be the draught!"

By the Ionian Sea: Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy, George Gissing (1901)

[litandlifequotes]

For it is the mind which creates the world about us, and, even though we stand side by side in the same meadow, my eyes will never see what is beheld by yours, my heart will never stir to the emotions with which yours is touched. 

The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft by George Gissing

[lissreads]

I love Gissing, but I've never heard of this one. I found it in the used bookstore today and risked my life climbing the shelves to reach it, so it better be good.

[judgingbooksbycovers]

The Odd Women

By George Gissing.

[1five1two]

The misery of having no time to read a thousand glorious books.

George Gissing

[quotation--marks]

In no woman on earth could he have put perfect confidence. He regarded them as born to perpetual pupilage. Not that their inclinations were necessarily wanton; they were simply incapable of attaining maturity, remained throughout their life imperfect beings, at the mercy of craft, ever liable to be misled by childish misconceptions. Of course he was right; he himself represented the guardian male, the wife-proprietor, who from the dawn of civilisation has taken abundant care that woman shall not outgrow her nonage. The bitterness of his situation lay in the fact that he had wedded a woman who irresistibly proved to him her claims as a human being.

George Gissing, The Odd Women

[biboocat]

Odd Women by George Gissing depicts the heart breaking plight of poor, unmarried Victorian women, their deprivations, fears, and limited opportunities for employment. We see how marriage can provide for their security and how it can imprison them. In contrast we see two remarkably progressive women partners who teach poor, unmarried women office skills and a sense of empowerment to help them escape abusive work and poverty. One of these women, Rhoda Nunn, struggles to maintain her own independence and standards of love when she is confronted with the possibility of marriage. It has a dour tone of realism throughout, but it’s a memorable work with strong feminist themes that remains pertinent today.

Memorable passage:

Like most men of his kind, he viewed religion as a precious and powerful instrument for directing the female conscience.

[statoprecario]

"Verso il Mar Ionio. Un vittoriano al Sud" di George Gissing

“Verso il Mar Ionio. Un vittoriano al Sud” di George Gissing

Il Sud d’Italia alle soglie del Novecento è vissuto e narrato come mai prima da un grande e singolare autore vittoriano, quarantenne inquieto e solitario: uno “scrittore nato” secondo Virginia Woolf. Il 16 novembre 1897 George Gissing lascia Napoli diretto a Paola, si ferma a Cosenza, poi raggiunge Taranto, Metaponto, Sibari, Crotone, Catanzaro, Squillace e infine Reggio Calabria, lungo il…

[reallybadblackoutpoems]

eve’s ransom (1895) - george gissing

“pspspsps”

[j-august]

"I maintain that we people of brains are justified in supplying the mob with the food it likes. We are not geniuses, and if we sit down in a spirit of long-eared gravity we shall produce only commonplace stuff. Let us use our wits to earn money, and make the best we can of our lives. If only I had the skill, I would produce novels out-trashing the trashiest that ever sold fifty thousand copies. But it needs skill, mind you: and to deny it is a gross error of the literary pedants. To please the vulgar you must, one way or another, incarnate the genius of vulgarity."

George Gissing, New Grub Street

[julesofnature]

 “The mere chink of cups and saucers tunes the mind to happy repose.”  ~George Gissing

[calabria-mediterranea]

"Catanzaro must be one of the healthiest spots in Southern Italy; perhaps it has no rival in this respect among the towns south of Rome. The furious winds, with which my acquaintances threatened me, did not blow during my stay, but there was always more or less breeze, and the kind of breeze that refreshes. I should like to visit Catanzaro in the summer; probably one would have all the joy of glorious sunshine without oppressive heat, and in the landscape in those glowing days would be indescribably beautiful.

I remember with delight the public garden at Cosenza, its noble view over the valley of the Crati to the heights of Sila; that of Catanzaro is in itself more striking, and the prospect it affords has a sterner, grander note. Here you wander amid groups of magnificent trees, an astonishingly rich and varied vegetation; and from a skirting terrace you look down upon the precipitous gorge, burnt into barenness save where a cactus clings to some jutting rock. Here in summer-time would be freshness amid noontide heat, with wondrous avenues of golden light breaking the dusk beneath the boughs. I shall never see it; but the desire often comes to me under northern skies, when I am weary of labour and seek in fancy a paradise of idleness."

By the Ionian Sea: Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy, George Gissing (1901)

Thomas Miles Richardson Jr - Catanzaro, Calabria, Italy (1857)

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[aliteraryprincess]

24 in 2024 - September Update

We're more than halfway through the year now, so I figured I'd do another update. I've read 12 (and a half) out of 24! Halfway there!

Antigone by Sophocles (classic)

Ariadne by Ouida (classic; dissertation)

The Biographer’s Tale by A. S. Byatt (historical literary fiction) 2 stars (this is not, in fact historical fiction like I thought it would be.)

Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller (historical fiction) 3.5 stars

Cecilia by Frances Burney (classic) 5 stars

Contes by Charles Perrault (classic; in French) 5 stars

The Daisy Chain by Charlotte Mary Yonge (classic)

Deerbrook by Harriet Martineau (classic)

The Doctor’s Wife by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (classic; dissertation) 4.5 stars

Fairy Tale by Stephen King (fantasy) I'm currently reading this, so I've half crossed it out. 😆

Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy (classic) 4 stars

How to Be a Victorian by Ruth Goodman (nonfiction)

Ideala by Sarah Grand (classic)

The Idiot by Elif Batuman (literary fiction) 4 stars

Jane Austen: A Life by Claire Tomalin (nonfiction) 4 stars

Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura (fantasy) 4.5 stars

Mortomley’s Estate by Charlotte Riddell (classic; dissertation)

New Grub Street by George Gissing (classic; dissertation) 4.5 stars

The Perpetual Curate by Margaret Oliphant (classic; dissertation) 4 stars

Richard & John: Kings at War by Richard McLynn (nonfiction)

Sister Novelists by Devoney Looser (nonfiction) 5 stars

The Stranger by Albert Camus (classic; in French)

The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (classic; dissertation)

The Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare (classic)