Workers in the Dawn

Workers in the Dawn is the first published novel by George Gissing, which originally appeared in print in 1880. Prior to this, Gissing had worked on writing another novel, although this unknown work was not accepted by any publishers, and has not survived. It focuses on the unhappy marriage of Arthur Golding and Carrie Mitchell. It was based on Gissing's own experience of an unhappy marriage, to Marianne Helen Harrison. The original working title was Far Far Away, in reference to a song that appears in the novel, but the title was changed to Workers in the Dawn before publication. Writing in a letter do his brother Algernon, Gissing explained that he had chosen this title because the "principal characters are earnest young people striving for improvement in, as it were, the dawn of a new phase of our civilization".

In a later letter to Algernon, Gissing described the book as an "attack upon certain features of our present religious and social life which to me appear highly condemnable", particularly the "criminal negligence of governments". As an author, he saw himself as "a mouthpiece of the Radical party", concluding that "It is not a book for women and children, but for thinking and struggling men."

Publication

Workers of the Dawn is the longest of Gissing's novels, with over 280,000 words. The writing of Workers in the Dawn was completed in about a year, partly as a result of the encouragement and support of Eduard Bertz. Writing to a friend in Germany, Bertz described himself as "in a way...the begetter of the book".

Gissing first offered it to a publisher in November 1879, but Gissing faced rejection from a number of publishing firms, including Smith and Elder, Chatto and Windus and C. Kegan Paul. Eventually, Gissing decided to publish a run of 277 copies of the novel at his own expense, with the help of Remington and Company. This project cost him £125, with the contract demanding payment of £50 upfront, £40 after the printing of the first two volumes and £35 after the publication of the third. Under the agreement of Remington, two-thirds of any profit would go to the author. In the end, Gissing's income from Remington was sixteen shillings.

Later, when three-volume novels were less fashionable, Gissing worked on shorter revisions of his works, including Workers in the Dawn, for which he outlined changes in his own copy of the novel. This revision was not completed, however.

Reception

In a letter to Algernon soon after the publication of the review in the Athenaeum, Gissing described critics as "unprincipled vagabonds". He criticised this particular reviewer for not understanding the "spirit of [the] book" and for judging it as a "mere polemical pamphlet, and not a work of art". However, he was flattered that his novel had received such a long review and concluded that overall it was "an attractive review".

References

Citations

Bibliography

• Pierre Coustillas (5 March 1996). George Gissing: The Critical Heritage. Psychology Press. pp. 49–. ISBN 978-0-415-13468-2. Retrieved 12 June 2012.
• Korg, Jacob (1975). George Gissing: A Critical Biography. Taylor & Francis.
• Korg, Jacob (1955). "Division of purpose in George Gissing". PMLA. 70 (3): 323–336. Retrieved 12 June 2012. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Law, Graham (2007). ""A Vile Way of Publishing": Gissing and Serials". Victorian Review. 33 (1): 82–83. Retrieved 19 May 2012.
• Wolff, Joseph J. (1953). "Gissing's revision of "The Unclassed"". Nineteenth-Century Fiction. 8 (1). Retrieved 12 June 2012. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Young, Arthur C. (1958). "George Gissing's friendship with Eduard Bertz". Nineteenth-Century Fiction. 13 (3): 227–237. Retrieved 12 June 2012. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)