George Gissing's best-known novel shows us the literary underbelly of Victorian England, and the writers striving to forge their reputations in 'the street of no shame'. ‘As a study in the pathology of the literary life it is unequalled, and still surprisingly relevant’ David Lodge, Independent Grub Street - where would-be writers aim high, publishers plumb the depths and literature is a trade, never a calling. In a literary world disfigured by greed and explotation, two very different writers rise and fall: Edward Reardon, a novelist whose high standards prevent him from pandering to the common taste, and Jasper Milvain, who possesses no such scruples. Gissing's dark and darkly funny novel presents a little-seen but richly absorbing slice of nineteeth-century society.