No book has told the truth about the literary life more mercilessly than New Grub Street. Two writers stand at its center — one who can turn out what the market wants and one who cannot — and the woman who married the second on the strength of his reviews. George Gissing, who wrecked a brilliant academic career at eighteen and knew the reading room, the pawnshop, and the three-volume deadline from within, spares no one. This edition presents the complete and unabridged novel, newly typeset and illustrated with 50 full-page color plates, Spitzweg's poor poet among them.