New Grub Street: The 1901 Revised Text (English Literary Studies Monograph)

The first edition of Gissing's New Grub Street appeared in three volumes in 1891, and all of the many subsequent English-language editions have been based on this text. Gissing wanted to revise and abridge it, but never found a publisher willing to issue a revised text. However, when his companion Gabrielle Fleury translated the novel into French, Gissing made extensive cuts in the copy from which she worked. He approved the final translation, which was published in 1901 under the title La Rue des Meurt-de-Faim. That year, Gissing wrote to Henry Davray, who had reviewed New Grub Street and Born in Exile in the Mercure de France: "Of course you are right about the superfluities to be found in both of them. The fault is partly due to their having been written when English fiction was subjected to the three-volume system; but also in a measure to the haste in which all my early work was done. As the Oxford undergraduate said about his essay I had not time to make the things shorter. However, in the case of New Grub Street, this defect is remedied in the French translation; almost a third of the novel has been cut out. If ever I get the opportunity, I shall give all my books a vigorous revision, & cut them down." Gissing eliminated various minor characters and sub-plots, and cut some passages of autobiography and personal opinion that were not relevant to the main themes of the novel. Altogether, the revised New Grub Street is a more unified work, with a stronger narrative drive.