ABSTRACT
George Gissing made an important contribution to the development of urban fiction, which increasingly reflected current debates about women's presence in the London. This chapter discusses his novels related to the subjects of prostitution and working-class life. Gissing's early novels provide a commentary on streetwalking, tempering the excesses of working-class sexuality as depicted in French naturalist fiction whilst seeking to go beyond the restrictive and alarmist images of the degraded prostitute promoted by late-Victorian reformers. By rewriting the 'downward histories' of the bolder prostitutes, his alternative narratives raise a series of questions about the attractions of the prostitute lifestyle to young working women worn down by the drudgery of domestic service and other menial occupations. Through a detailed examination of the working-class woman's role as a streetwalker or 'girl of the town', he is able to delineate the urban freedoms she enjoyed in spite of the restrictions imposed by both men and the police on her cherished independence.
