Amazon.com description: Product Description: George Gissing was a late Victorian author. Between 1880 and 1903 Gissing wrote 23 novels. His early works were naturalistic and later he wrote in a realistic style. His works include New Grub Street, Born in Exile, The Odd Women, In the Year of Jubilee, and The Whirlpool. Gissing gives the reader a look at the social elite with their snobbish attitudes and rules that govern their lives. An excerpt reads, ôAt breakfast her behaviour was marked with excessive decorum. To the ordinary civilities of her host and hostess she replied softly, modestly, in the manner of a very young and timid girl; save when addressed, she kept silence, and sat with head inclined; a virginal freshness breathed about her; she ate very little, and that without her usual gusto, but rather as if performing a dainty ceremony. Her eyes never moved in Mumford's direction.ö