ABSTRACT
When Gissing died at St Jean-de-Luz, in 1903, broken down at the age offorty-six by years oftoil and privation, he had begun to acquire in the world at large something of the reputation he had long possessed among a select circle. But it is to be feared that the irony of his later works, such as the posthumous volume of tales recently published,* may create a wrong impression of his genius among these newly won friends. For Gissing, more than most writers, underwent a change with the progress of time. His work in fact may be divided into three fairly distinct periods. Passing over the immature Workers in the Dawn (1880), we may mark off the first group of novels as beginning with The Unclassed (1884), and ending with Born in Exile (1892); between these two are Isabel Clarendon, Demos, Thyrza, A Life's Morning, The Nether World, The Emancipated, and New Grub Street. The second group, starting with Denzil Quarrier (1892), may be limited by The Crown of Life (1899), although the transition here to his final manner is more gradual than the earlier change. This second division embraces what are perhaps the best known of Gissing's novels-In the Year of * The House ofCobwebs and Other Stories. By George Gissing. To which is prefixei The Work of George Gissing, an introductory study, by Thomas Seccombe. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1906. Several of the most important of Gissing's earlier novels are not to be found in Ne\v York, either in bookshop or library; and, indeed, he cannot be said ever to have been properly published at all. By getting together a complete and decently printed edition of his works some enterprising publisher might benefit himself and the community.
