Product Description

The Nether World (1889) is generally regarded as the finest of Gissing's early novels. A fast moving story of highly dramatic, sometimes violent scenes, it depicts life amongst the artisans, factory-girls, and slum-dwellers of Clerkenwell in the 1870s. But this is not just a novel of documentary realism. It is one man's mordant vision - shaped by bitter personal experience of poverty - of the quality of life endured by a variety of characters in the nether world. With Zolaesque intensity and relentlessness, Gissing lays bare the economic forces which determine the aspirations and expectations of those born to a life of labour. This is a tale of intrigue, as rapacious schemers try to wrest a fortune out of a mysterious old man who has returned to their midst, and of thwarted love. There is no sentimentality. This is a world in which the strong exercise power against their own kind, scheming and struggling for survival, a world from which, Gissing bleakly maintains, there can be no escape.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #384595 in Books
• Published on: 1999-06-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Customer Reviews

Possibly the best English Nineteenth-Century Novel
'The Nether World' is a thoroughly intricate and absorbing novel which projects a romantically cynical view of London life in the Late Nineteenth-Century. The story is filled with remarkably rounded characters which, despite their abject status, shine with intensity. In particular, Clara the aspiring young woman, touches the most.

One can not be sure of Gissings stance towards the characters and surroundings of Clerkenwell, whether it be be pity or contempt. However, the overall mood within the novel cynically depicts the tedious and alienated London life.

I thought that I could never enjoy a Nineteenth-Century novel, until I read this one. Gissing surpasses Dickens in characterisation and humour and challenges the detail of Eliot.

An Intriguing Tale of Poor Londoners
This is a vivid and at times gripping Victorian novel set in the London district of Clerkenwell in the 1870s. It follows the lives of a group of poor people living on subsistence wages. Gissing splendidly charts their rivalries, hopes and inevitable disappointments in trying to escape from the unremitting drudgery of everyday life in this closely delineated area of the capital. The book strikes a more realistic tone than, say, Dickens and does not have recourse to caricature or unlikely twists of fate to intervene on behalf of the protagonists. It is, perhaps, closer to the style of Arnold Bennett. An interesting story, well told and an excellent writing style.

Rise and Fall of The Triple-Decker
Gissing, although writing well-crafted stories, is one of those Victorian authors I can never be too sure of. His works are often padded with unnecessary passing characters and dialogue as verbiage - but this is a reflection of the market he was writing for and the need to produce a novel in three hefty volumes.

The Nether World, being about slum life in Clerkenwell, covers a subject that has been written on by many...'Mark Rutherford's Deliverance', 'The People Of The Abyss', 'Down and Out In Paris and London' etc etc and yet it manages to sketch believable scenes that allow the reader to maintain a credible detachment from the characters whose lives we are invited to observe.

Writing at a furious pace of almost one triple-decker a year, Gissing did write some duds ('A Life's Morning' for example) and some gems ('In the Year Of Jubilee', 'Born In Exile', 'The Odd Women') and I do consider this one to be in the 'gems' category - but only just, as it is possible to see a struggling young author still learning his craft in, as we know from biography, appalling conditions.