New Grub St Audiobook By George Gissing Peter cover art

New Grub St

Preview

Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

New Grub St

By: George Gissing Peter
Narrated by: Peter Newcombe Joyce
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $20.50

Buy for $20.50

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

One of the greatest novels to have come from the 19th century, a realistic, gritty exposure of the lives, loves, intrigue and rivalry that existed in the literary world of London.

The art form and culture of writing is becoming a business, expanding rapidly, and profit is more important than integrity of purpose. In the search for a wider readership, editors and publishers look to the poorer educated classes believing that shorter, slighter commercial treatments will sell and thus erudite writers with serious ideas and 'urgent messages for the world' have their work devalued. 'Instead of Chat I should call it Chit-Chat...it would sell like hot cakes. On the same principle...if the Tatler were changed to Tittle-Tattle its circulation would be trebled...An admirable idea! Tittle-Tattle -a magnificent title; the very thing to catch the multitude.'

The downward intellectual spiral is of course contrasted by the progress of lightweight, jobbing writers able to turn their pens, with ease, to any task and supply copy with trite, popular appeal. Gissing knew his subject well, and his characterisation of the facile, unscrupulous Milvain, the rancorous Yule, the paranoid and impoverished Reardon all have the note of authenticity, as do the women used and abused by them in their struggle for success and the publication of their work.

Truly one of the books from which we should learn, monumental in the telling, the story is an engrossing tale, describing a shabby Pyrrhic victory, at the expense of all those with a reasoning mind, of self-advertisement over artistic endeavour in an ongoing war- of what happens when pen meets penury.

Public Domain (P)2009 Assembled Stories
Classics Psychological Fiction
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Critic reviews

"This bitter 1891 tale illustrates the cry of struggling writer, Reardon, as his life disintegrates: 'to make a trade of an art is a brutal folly'. Unable to squander his talent and write saleable ephemera, Reardon drags himself and his wife into abject poverty. Superb narration." ( The Observer)

What listeners say about New Grub St

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    6
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    6
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Dealing with poverty

I wasn't happy with the ending. I looked at Jasper as a shallow man, undeserving of Marian, but to end with him being happy while Marian was left alone and unhappy, left me sad.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!