George Gissing

(1857-1903) George Gissing was the son of a pharmaceutical chemist in Wakefield, Yorkshire, England. He attended local schools and went on to Owen College, Manchester. His love for a local prostitute whom he supported with money and clothes that he stole, earned him a month's hard labor and an expulsion from school. Upon his release, he left for America, where he stayed for a year. He returned to England and married the prostitute, whose name was Nell Harrison. By 1883 the couple had separated. At this time, Gissing began to publish his fiction, entirely at his own expense. George Gissing was remarried in 1891, and this marriage, too, proved unhappy. Gissing left his second wife in 1897, although the two did not divorce. George Gissing finally found happiness with Gabrielle Fluery, a Frenchwoman, whom he lived with until his death. His works: A Life's Morning, Born In Exile, By the Ionian Sea, Charles Dickens, A Study, Demos, Dezzil Quarrier, The Emancipated, In the Year of the Jubilee, Isabel Clarendon, The Nether World, New Grub Street, Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, The Odd Woman, Thyrza, The Unclassed, Veranilda (incomplete), Will Wharburton (posthumously), The Whirlpool, Workers in the Dawn.