George Gissing (1[zasłonięte]857-19) lived a life worthy of the plot from one of his own novels. An exceptionally gifted man, born into relatively genteel comfort, he nonetheless managed to enter into two disastrous marriages with working-class women, got thrown out of university for stealing, spent a month doing hard labour in prison and died before the age of fifty. It is all the more surprising then, that he still managed to write twenty-three novels and over a hundred short stories, as well as works of literary criticism and a travelogue. This ambitious three-volume biography examines both his life and writing chronologically and in close detail. Coustillas's exhaustive research is based on all the known surviving Gissing correspondence, Gissing's works and every piece of literary criticism on Gissing from 1880 onwards. Press archives from England, America, the former Colonies, France and Germany have all been consulted. This approach, by the foremost authority on Gissing, allows new insights into his life and work. Part I covers Gissing's early life up until his establishment as a writer of moderate critical success.Gissing's precocious intellectual development propelled him to a scholarship at Owens College (now the University of Manchester), but while there his ill-advised love affair with the prostitute Marianne (Nell) Harrison led to him stealing to keep her off the streets and thence to prison. On release, he sailed for America and lived for a while in Chicago. It was during this period that he got his first chance as a writer, producing short stories for the Chicago Tribune. On his return to England Gissing married Nell and began teaching and writing novels. These early works are notable for their focus on poverty and the working classes.