ABSTRACT
Of all our novelists, Mr George Gissing has shown himself the most open to the influences ofcontinental literature ; but we doubt ifeven he, at the beginning of his career, set himself docilely to translate into English the last achievements of the realistic school of France. That they served as a slight impetus to his work is unquestionable, but he was too true an artist to be a mere imitator; and, even though he had in his youthful days a wish to equal their 'glorious effects of filth and outrage,' he had not the heart to do so. Some of the 'efflorescences' of his very early works no doubt hindered the appreciation ofthe original qualities which he exhibited, but they were merely passages ofyouthful braggadocio, and most of them have been omitted from later editions. His first novel, Workers in the Dawn, published in 1880, it would be unkind to criticise minutely. It was promising, but very
immature. It shows what books influenced Mr Gissing when he was twenty-one years of age, more than what powers of observation he was to develop; for his characters are distinguished chiefly by the opinions which they are given to express concerning humanitarian matters and the conflicting theories of Comte and Schopenhauer.
