SELDOM has a novel dealt with the task of writing for a living more convincingly than New Grub Street. Although the book- and magazine-publishing industries are much changed today, the literary types who populate the novel remain recognisable more than 130 years later. Modern hacks complain about the impact of the internet and declining print sales on work security and income, but Gissing’s uncompromising tale reminds us that the trade has long been in a state of flux.
Grub Street (once a London street, now in the area of Milton Street, north of
