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Abstract
The purpose of my thesis is to prove in what ways George Gissing is a representative novelist of the transitional period between the Victorian and modern eras, and to examine and evaluate critically New Grub Street, his best work. The conditions and characteristics of the late nineteenth century are surveyed especially as they relate to Gissing's novelistic methods in New Grub Street. A sketch of Gissing's life shows both how his experiences molded his artistic vision and practice, and how he incorporated many of his attitudes and experiences into this novel, without allowing it to become merely fictionalized autobiography. A criticism of New Grub Street as a work of art places emphasis on the novel's transitional characteristics and the manner in which they affect its aesthetic merit. Of moment in the consideration of New Grub Street as a transitional novel is the way in which Gissing, who was to a degree influenced by traditional and contemporary novelists, shaped these influences to suit his own purposes.