Sad to say, most people, even those who are fans of Victorian-era literature, have probably never heard of George Gissing. Those who do know him think perhaps he was a 'one hit wonder' with New Grub Street. While New Grub Street is a brilliant read, his little known In the Year of the Jubilee (IYJ) is also a gem.

On the surface, IYJ is a story common to Victorian-era novels. People are obsessed with the thought of inheriting money, making sure they are viewed as 'refined' rather than 'working class', and the notion of 'family values' is taken to an extreme. However in IYJ we finally see the emergence of the middle class, people who are in white collar jobs and who see the value in working (rather than living off of someone else's fortune). And most shocking for a Victorian novel, the most forceful character is a young woman who actually seeks out work to keep her life interesting (and not depend on her estranged husband).

IYJ is well-written, thought-provoking without being preachy, and should be held in esteem on par with the works from James, Eliot, Wharton and, indeed, other works from George Gissing.

"In The Odd Women there is not a single major character whose life is not ruined either by having too little money, or by getting it too late in life, or by the pressure of social conventions which are obviously absurd but which cannot be questioned." --George Orwell

George Gissing was a very odd man himself. Despite the fact that all his novels deal with social issues of the day, notably women, money, and class relations, he was neither a socialist nor a social reformer. He simply described in novels what he knew of degredation, misery, and the tortures "respectable" English society inflicted upon its outcasts and marginal figures. In The Odd Women Gissing chose to focus on the predicament of the extra females of Britain's disproporionate population ratio. These were the "odd" women who would never be matched with a man. Gissing's Madden sisters endured a representative sampling of the a dreary employment opportunities available for genteel but impoverished women in the 1890s. Of the two eldest Madden sisters, Alice was a governess until her health broke down; Virginia was lady's companion (poorly-paid drudge to an elderly tyrant) who has suffered from "mental lassitude" and taken to secret drinking. Another sister, a luckless "hard-featured" girl, is dead before the story begins; she taught in a girl's school until she committed suicide in despair. Monica, the youngest and only good-looking sister, spends twelve to sixteen hours a day on her feet in a large dry-goods shop and lives in an unsanitary dormitory with other shopgirls, some of whom supplement their wages by prostitution. Her sisters fear that Monica's health will also break down under this regime, and that she will lose her looks and her chance of marriage.

Enter Miss Rhoda Nunn and Miss Elinor Barfoot, two enterprising women who have founded a school to teach "odd" women business skills to enable them to compete economically, or at least rise above the general level of ill-paid drudgery. Barfoot and Nunn are early feminists; they wish to live and teach other women to live without feeling diminished by their unmarried status. Monica Madden considers enrolling in their school, but she has managed to meet and attract a man, a middle-aged bachelor named Widdowson, whom she marries instead. The substance of the novel involves the wreck of Monica's life following her disastrous marriage, and Rhoda Nunn's struggle to deal with her relationship with a man she is attracted to, but whom she cannot marry or live with without suffering diminishment and the loss of her role as a teacher and leader.

Gissing's book is a serious and sympathetic treatment of the much-discussed "woman question," and written from a point of view somewhat in advance of his time. The Odd Women has been mostly out of print for the last hundred years, and it is to be hoped that the recent appearance of three new editions heralds a long-delayed recognition of its merits.

I read this book for a class. I found it interesting, but it is certainly not one I would pick for a little weekend reading. It is very heavy, and depressing -- which is very typical of the British Victorian Era (when discussing the working class). It traces the lives of a number of working class people and their trials. Being that life for them was not a very optomistic place it is easy to understand why this book is rather dark. It took a while to get into, but once into it I did enjoy it. (as much as possible).

'The Whirlpool' is an account of emerging middle class in London circa 1890. With it comes all the social trauma of trying to find a balance between work, rearing of children, and leisure. As with some of other Gissing's works he focuses more on the plight of the women wanting to be more than simple 'hausfraus'. Their desire for personal fulfillment while still be super-wife and super-mom is probably true to the feelings of many women today.

However as 'The Whirlpool' chronicles the lives of select London families it does so at a very slow pace. The dramatic moments are very prosaic. Fortunately the narrative and characterisations make this to be a reasonably good read, especially for anyone interested in feminism and life during that period.

Bottom line: on balance a decent book. However I recommend reading Gissing's 'New Grub Street' to really appreciate his writing talents.