New Grub Street (1891), generally regarded as Gissing's finest novel, is the story of the daily lives and broken dreams of men and women forced to earn a living by the pen. It tells of a group of novelists, journalists, and scholars caught in the literary and cultural crisis that hit Britain in the closing years of the nineteenth century. if you like your characters real and messy, your endings less than clear cut and your narratives laced with dark and knowing humour, then New Grub Street is well worth adding to your to be read list.