ABSTRACT
Ifit were not for a certain undercurrent ofpessimism running through his work, Mr George Gissing would take high rank among writers of fiction. While it is no part of a novelist's duty to inculcate that everything happens for the best in this best of all possible worlds, neither should he close his eyes to the fact that there is a good deal ofsubstantial happiness to be obtained here below. The Emancipated is notable for the number of broken or marred lives it depicts. People are emancipated from false ideas of religion, from false principles of art, from the thraldom of false love; and, indeed, all through the story one character or another is in process of emancipation of some kind....
