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The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
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143 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1902
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About the author
George Gissing
374 books204 followersPeople best know British writer George Robert Gissing for his novels, such as
New Grub Street
(1891), about poverty and hardship.
This English novelist who published twenty-three novels between 1880 and 1903. From his early naturalistic works, he developed into one of the most accomplished realists of the late-Victorian era.
Born to lower-middle-class parents, Gissing went to win a scholarship to Owens College, the present-day University of Manchester. A brilliant student, he excelled at university, winning many coveted prizes, including the Shakespeare prize in 1875. Between 1891 and 1897 (his so-called middle period) he produced his best works, which include New Grub Street, Born in Exile , The Odd Women , In the Year of Jubilee , and The Whirlpool . The middle years of the decade saw his reputation reach new heights: some critics count him alongside George Meredith and Thomas Hardy, the best novelists of his day. He also enjoyed new friendships with fellow writers such as Henry James, and H.G. Wells, and came into contact with many other up-and-coming writers such as Joseph Conrad and Stephen Crane.
This English novelist who published twenty-three novels between 1880 and 1903. From his early naturalistic works, he developed into one of the most accomplished realists of the late-Victorian era.
Born to lower-middle-class parents, Gissing went to win a scholarship to Owens College, the present-day University of Manchester. A brilliant student, he excelled at university, winning many coveted prizes, including the Shakespeare prize in 1875. Between 1891 and 1897 (his so-called middle period) he produced his best works, which include New Grub Street, Born in Exile , The Odd Women , In the Year of Jubilee , and The Whirlpool . The middle years of the decade saw his reputation reach new heights: some critics count him alongside George Meredith and Thomas Hardy, the best novelists of his day. He also enjoyed new friendships with fellow writers such as Henry James, and H.G. Wells, and came into contact with many other up-and-coming writers such as Joseph Conrad and Stephen Crane.
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January 8, 2025
Henry Ryecroft
"The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft" (1903) was once the most widely-read work of the English novelist George Gissing (1857 - 1903). It was Gissing's own favorite among his works. The book appeared in the year of Gissing's death. Gissing lived a difficult life which became the basis for much of his over 20 novels. As a youth, he was expelled from an exclusive school and imprisoned for stealing to support a prostitute, with whom he subsequently made an unhappy marriage. He lived in squalor for many years in the garrets of London while writing prolifically. His early novels deal with the urban poor while the latter books include a broader spectrum of characters as Gissing's own situation improved. He writes of the commodification of art and of the difficulty of achieving personal autonomy in a commercial culture and in a state of poverty. Today, Gissing's most famous work is "New Grub Street", a pessimistic story of London literary life.
Many readers see "Ryecroft" as at least partially autobiographical. The book is cast in an unusual form. It opens with a Preface by Gissing himself ("G.G.") which gives the outline of the life of his fictional protagonist. For more twenty years, Gissing tells the reader, Ryecroft had labored in obscurity in the poor quarters of London attempting to made a living by his pen. At the age of 50, Ryecroft received an unexpected testamentary gift which enabled him to leave London and retire to a modest cottage in Exeter accompanied only by an elderly woman domestic. Ryecroft enjoyed a few years of peace and contentment in the country before dying of a heart ailment. Then, the story goes, the narrator went through Ryecroft's papers and found a diary of his observations and meditations which the narrator edited, organized, and published as Ryecroft's "Private Papers." The body of the work is organized into four chapters, titled "Spring", "Summer", "Autumn" and "Winter" of Ryecroft's meditations and thoughts. Each of these chapters is, in turn, organized into a number of short chapters, some interconnected and some rambling and discrete.
Ryecroft muses about his life in the country and how he has found a measure of peace at last. Although he is a different type of person in many ways, I thought of Thoreau and Walden in reading Ryecroft's fictitious diary. Both Ryecroft and Thoreau love solitude and both spend much time in long walks through the country observing flowers, rivers and meadows, and birds. Both characters, Ryecroft more than Thoreau, are highly bookish. Many of the memorable passages in Gissing's book describe his characters love for books, especially the classics and his experiences in purchasing books as a struggling writer in his garret, carrying them home, reading them and, on occasion, being forced to sell them. Ryecroft in his solitude remains enamored of his books, not only with rereading them but with their mere sight and even with their smell. Ryecroft's musings also involve, as Thoreau's do not, his life as a young writer in London. Ryecroft recalls with life of poverty, struggle, and pain, as he tried to eke out a living as a writer.
There is a great deal in Ryecroft about the hardships of poverty which sometimes imparts a materialistic cast to the work. But Ryecroft is unending in his criticism of a commercial, competitive urban society which, he believes, forces some people to live in squalor and prohibits the development of the mind and heart. When he retires to the country, Ryecroft is not wealthy. But he does have the means he finds necessary for a life of freedom and independence.
In the book, Ryecroft offers his thoughts on many subjects including England, which for all the fault he finds in it he loves dearly, class structure, democracy (which he dislikes), the United States, the rise of science, history, nature, his childhood, philosophy, his attitude towards death, books, friendship, and much else. Interestingly, there is little in the book on relations with women and on the sexuality which proved to be a source of the highest difficulty for Gissing in his own life. The meditations in the book are of a distinctly mixed quality. The sections that for me detracted markedly from the book were those at the beginning of the final "Winter" chapter in which Ryecroft talks interminably of his fondness for English beef and of the qualities of a good pat of butter. This gourmandizing is off-putting in the context of the book. Some readers also find a defensive, critical and defeated tone in Ryecroft. On the whole, I think the book tells of a successful effort to attain peace and to accept one's past.
I have returned to Ryecroft and to Gissing frequently over the years. Ryecroft remains an unusual book about a difficult character who resists easy conceptualization. On my latest reading of Ryecroft, I concluded with some reluctance that it was not the equal of the best of Gissing in books such as "New Grub Street", "Born in Exile" or "The Odd Women". I was less taken with the book in my most recent reading than when I first encountered the book years ago. Even so, the writing in the book is eloquent, ornate and most of the time moving. I enjoyed reentering Ryecroft's world, hearing his voice again, and sometimes taking issue with him.
Robin Friedman
"The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft" (1903) was once the most widely-read work of the English novelist George Gissing (1857 - 1903). It was Gissing's own favorite among his works. The book appeared in the year of Gissing's death. Gissing lived a difficult life which became the basis for much of his over 20 novels. As a youth, he was expelled from an exclusive school and imprisoned for stealing to support a prostitute, with whom he subsequently made an unhappy marriage. He lived in squalor for many years in the garrets of London while writing prolifically. His early novels deal with the urban poor while the latter books include a broader spectrum of characters as Gissing's own situation improved. He writes of the commodification of art and of the difficulty of achieving personal autonomy in a commercial culture and in a state of poverty. Today, Gissing's most famous work is "New Grub Street", a pessimistic story of London literary life.
Many readers see "Ryecroft" as at least partially autobiographical. The book is cast in an unusual form. It opens with a Preface by Gissing himself ("G.G.") which gives the outline of the life of his fictional protagonist. For more twenty years, Gissing tells the reader, Ryecroft had labored in obscurity in the poor quarters of London attempting to made a living by his pen. At the age of 50, Ryecroft received an unexpected testamentary gift which enabled him to leave London and retire to a modest cottage in Exeter accompanied only by an elderly woman domestic. Ryecroft enjoyed a few years of peace and contentment in the country before dying of a heart ailment. Then, the story goes, the narrator went through Ryecroft's papers and found a diary of his observations and meditations which the narrator edited, organized, and published as Ryecroft's "Private Papers." The body of the work is organized into four chapters, titled "Spring", "Summer", "Autumn" and "Winter" of Ryecroft's meditations and thoughts. Each of these chapters is, in turn, organized into a number of short chapters, some interconnected and some rambling and discrete.
Ryecroft muses about his life in the country and how he has found a measure of peace at last. Although he is a different type of person in many ways, I thought of Thoreau and Walden in reading Ryecroft's fictitious diary. Both Ryecroft and Thoreau love solitude and both spend much time in long walks through the country observing flowers, rivers and meadows, and birds. Both characters, Ryecroft more than Thoreau, are highly bookish. Many of the memorable passages in Gissing's book describe his characters love for books, especially the classics and his experiences in purchasing books as a struggling writer in his garret, carrying them home, reading them and, on occasion, being forced to sell them. Ryecroft in his solitude remains enamored of his books, not only with rereading them but with their mere sight and even with their smell. Ryecroft's musings also involve, as Thoreau's do not, his life as a young writer in London. Ryecroft recalls with life of poverty, struggle, and pain, as he tried to eke out a living as a writer.
There is a great deal in Ryecroft about the hardships of poverty which sometimes imparts a materialistic cast to the work. But Ryecroft is unending in his criticism of a commercial, competitive urban society which, he believes, forces some people to live in squalor and prohibits the development of the mind and heart. When he retires to the country, Ryecroft is not wealthy. But he does have the means he finds necessary for a life of freedom and independence.
In the book, Ryecroft offers his thoughts on many subjects including England, which for all the fault he finds in it he loves dearly, class structure, democracy (which he dislikes), the United States, the rise of science, history, nature, his childhood, philosophy, his attitude towards death, books, friendship, and much else. Interestingly, there is little in the book on relations with women and on the sexuality which proved to be a source of the highest difficulty for Gissing in his own life. The meditations in the book are of a distinctly mixed quality. The sections that for me detracted markedly from the book were those at the beginning of the final "Winter" chapter in which Ryecroft talks interminably of his fondness for English beef and of the qualities of a good pat of butter. This gourmandizing is off-putting in the context of the book. Some readers also find a defensive, critical and defeated tone in Ryecroft. On the whole, I think the book tells of a successful effort to attain peace and to accept one's past.
I have returned to Ryecroft and to Gissing frequently over the years. Ryecroft remains an unusual book about a difficult character who resists easy conceptualization. On my latest reading of Ryecroft, I concluded with some reluctance that it was not the equal of the best of Gissing in books such as "New Grub Street", "Born in Exile" or "The Odd Women". I was less taken with the book in my most recent reading than when I first encountered the book years ago. Even so, the writing in the book is eloquent, ornate and most of the time moving. I enjoyed reentering Ryecroft's world, hearing his voice again, and sometimes taking issue with him.
Robin Friedman
October 11, 2020
In this novel of semi-autobiographical fiction, George Gissing has an unnamed editor publish the diary entries of his deceased friend, an author, the eponymous Henry Ryecroft. Henry, a widower with a married self-sufficient daughter, receives an inheritance. With the money he settles himself in a solitary, comfortable and cozy cottage in Devonshire. He is fifty three and it is nearing the end of the 19th century. Henry adores the countryside, enjoys the solitude and envisions himself spending the rest of his life here. A maid is employed to help him with the few chores that must be done. He walks among the fields and along the lanes, observing and enjoying nature. In the winter he sits by a crackling fire. He is surrounded by his favorite books. His life is calm and leisurely. He’s happy. For a year he ruminates and jots down his thoughts, which are what we read here, collected by his editor friend after Henry’s death.
I dithered back and forth between three and four stars. The writing is exceptionally good in its description of nature—trees, shrubs and flowers, spring, followed by summer, autumn and winter, bright sunny days and dark gloomy ones, those when snow blankets the ground, silencing sound, sunrises and colorful sunsets. When describing common, ordinary aspects of life and living, of human existence, the writing is wonderful.
Henry Ryecroft, i.e. George Gissing, also philosophizes. He ruminates about the writings of the Greeks, the Romans, Shakespeare, Dante, Spinoza, Samuel Johnson and more. He cites Latin prose—the lines are not translated. He refers to some thinkers and authors I do not know. My inability to relate to portions of the text is due to my own ignorance. Nevertheless, these sections do lower my rating.
I love what Henry says about reading—the beauty of reading is the enjoyment it gives us. That we forget large portions doesn’t matter! He is proud to be English, and this he speaks of too. He wonderfully describes how one feels connected to “home”, wherever that place may be. He points out the difference between intellectual and emotional wisdom. There is a lot here that is beautifully expressed and much to relate to, besides that which is beyond my reach.
Grover Gardner narrates very well. His narration I have given four stars. The tone of his voice is soothing. It fits perfectly the lyricality of Gissing’s lines. A few words are slurred; I could not distinguish absolutely every name.
The writing is eloquent. Much of the text gives the reader food for thought. For these two reasons I considered giving the book four stars. The abstruse philosophical sections, which others might consider equally satisfying, explain why I have given the book three rather than four stars.
I will close with a few quotes, allowing you to sample Gissing’s prose:
“It is the mind which creates the world around us, and even though we stand side by side in the same meadow, my eyes will never see what is beheld by yours, my heart will never stir to the emotions with which yours is touched.”
“For the man sound of body and serene of mind, there is no such thing as bad weather; every day has its beauty, and storms which whip the blood do but make it pulse more vigorously.”
“That is one of the bitter curses of poverty; it leaves no right to be generous.”
“Life is a huge farce, and the advantage of possessing a sense of humor is that it enables one to defy fate with mocking laughter.”
“It is familiarity with life that makes time speed quickly. When every day is a step in the unknown, as for children, the days are long with gathering of experience.”
“To every man it is decreed--thou shalt live alone. Happy, they who imagine that they have escaped the common lot; happy, whilst they imagine it.”
“To be at other people's orders brings out all the bad in me.”
Maybe the book does deserve four stars!
********************
*Eve's Ransom 4 stars
*The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft 3 stars
*The Odd Women 3 stars
*New Grub Street 2 stars
I dithered back and forth between three and four stars. The writing is exceptionally good in its description of nature—trees, shrubs and flowers, spring, followed by summer, autumn and winter, bright sunny days and dark gloomy ones, those when snow blankets the ground, silencing sound, sunrises and colorful sunsets. When describing common, ordinary aspects of life and living, of human existence, the writing is wonderful.
Henry Ryecroft, i.e. George Gissing, also philosophizes. He ruminates about the writings of the Greeks, the Romans, Shakespeare, Dante, Spinoza, Samuel Johnson and more. He cites Latin prose—the lines are not translated. He refers to some thinkers and authors I do not know. My inability to relate to portions of the text is due to my own ignorance. Nevertheless, these sections do lower my rating.
I love what Henry says about reading—the beauty of reading is the enjoyment it gives us. That we forget large portions doesn’t matter! He is proud to be English, and this he speaks of too. He wonderfully describes how one feels connected to “home”, wherever that place may be. He points out the difference between intellectual and emotional wisdom. There is a lot here that is beautifully expressed and much to relate to, besides that which is beyond my reach.
Grover Gardner narrates very well. His narration I have given four stars. The tone of his voice is soothing. It fits perfectly the lyricality of Gissing’s lines. A few words are slurred; I could not distinguish absolutely every name.
The writing is eloquent. Much of the text gives the reader food for thought. For these two reasons I considered giving the book four stars. The abstruse philosophical sections, which others might consider equally satisfying, explain why I have given the book three rather than four stars.
I will close with a few quotes, allowing you to sample Gissing’s prose:
“It is the mind which creates the world around us, and even though we stand side by side in the same meadow, my eyes will never see what is beheld by yours, my heart will never stir to the emotions with which yours is touched.”
“For the man sound of body and serene of mind, there is no such thing as bad weather; every day has its beauty, and storms which whip the blood do but make it pulse more vigorously.”
“That is one of the bitter curses of poverty; it leaves no right to be generous.”
“Life is a huge farce, and the advantage of possessing a sense of humor is that it enables one to defy fate with mocking laughter.”
“It is familiarity with life that makes time speed quickly. When every day is a step in the unknown, as for children, the days are long with gathering of experience.”
“To every man it is decreed--thou shalt live alone. Happy, they who imagine that they have escaped the common lot; happy, whilst they imagine it.”
“To be at other people's orders brings out all the bad in me.”
Maybe the book does deserve four stars!
********************
*Eve's Ransom 4 stars
*The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft 3 stars
*The Odd Women 3 stars
*New Grub Street 2 stars
January 6, 2015
This is definitely fiction, but the line between George Gissing and his Henry Ryecroft is perhaps a bit blurred. Ryecroft was a writer, but is now retired, having received an unexpected small inheritance. Gissing opens the volume with a preface outlining how, upon the death of his friend Ryecroft, he was called upon to go through his things, which included some writings over the last few years of his life. This little volume consists of the mental wanderings and reminiscences of the fictitious Ryecroft.
This was mostly a slog. And so it surprises me to find I highlighted quite a few sentences/paragraphs - more than is usual for me. Ryecroft liked to walk and observed nature. He occasionally waxed philosophical. He made observations on the English character. He was also a reader.
This was mostly a slog. And so it surprises me to find I highlighted quite a few sentences/paragraphs - more than is usual for me. Ryecroft liked to walk and observed nature. He occasionally waxed philosophical. He made observations on the English character. He was also a reader.
Sacrifice -- in no drawing-room sense of the word. Dozens of my books were purchased with money which ought to have been spent upon what are called the necessaries of life. Many a time I have stood before a stall, or a bookseller's window, torn by conflict of intellectual desire and bodily need. At the very hour of dinner, when my stomach clamoured for food, I have been stopped by sight of a volume so long-coveted, and marked at so advantageous a price, that I could not let it go; yet to buy it meant pangs of famine.I never went so far as to sacrifice my stomach. But I have shelves of books yet unread that I must not have truly needed at the moment of purchase. Surely they represent things that I might have needed more. I highlighted other passages having to do with the love of reading. And so, despite thinking it a slog, I kept reading, hoping to find a few more gems with which I could relate. There weren't enough of them. I'll rate this 3 stars, and it lies at the bottom of that heap.
April 22, 2011
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft purports to be the papers of a recently-deceased writer; aspects of it are autobiographical. The narrator who is tidying up his dead friend’s estate wonders why the hack writer had never written the novel he wanted to, and thinks it might be because ‘Ryecroft’ could not decide on the form.
'I imagine him shrinking from the thought of a first-person volume; he would feel it too pretentious; he would bid himself wait for the day of riper wisdom'. (The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft Kindle edition.)
What the ‘papers’ allow Gissing to do is to share what he has of wisdom, some of which is too reminiscent of the BBC Grumpy Old Men series for my taste. (That program is made for people who don’t already have tiresome old relations to bore them witless with opinionated harangues about the evils of the modern world. It is deeply depressing to see that Germaine Greer has joined them for the female version of the series.)
To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/201...
'I imagine him shrinking from the thought of a first-person volume; he would feel it too pretentious; he would bid himself wait for the day of riper wisdom'. (The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft Kindle edition.)
What the ‘papers’ allow Gissing to do is to share what he has of wisdom, some of which is too reminiscent of the BBC Grumpy Old Men series for my taste. (That program is made for people who don’t already have tiresome old relations to bore them witless with opinionated harangues about the evils of the modern world. It is deeply depressing to see that Germaine Greer has joined them for the female version of the series.)
To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/201...
August 16, 2020
I was looking forward to this as a celebration of books and hominess and nature—and, indeed, all of those parts are good; I myself would choose different books to rhapsodize on, but that’s fine. Unfortunately, most of the other 150 pages are Ryecroft’s (or Gissing’s) reactionary lament for a lost England, when the beef was cooked right, and no one thought of universal education, and servants enjoyed being servants. The best parts of this griping are about poverty, but all of that is in much better company in New Grub Street. Read that.
June 23, 2022
This book is a homage to Devon and kind of a counterfactual life that Gissing might have lived in a parallel world.Gissing is Ryecroft in another world. Enjoying solitude in charming Devon away from all bustle of city life. Charming book. Good nuggets of interesting ideas here and there, like difference between author and plumbing. Plumbing is demanded and therefore money can be expected but authors (unlike Trollope, whom I love but Gissing hates) produces work because of inner desire and hence should not expect the world to pay. Another thing is English may not have the false sense of empathy automatically with strangers but they have community spirit as exemplified by countless local society and public spirit. Even English butter is shown to be better than others , lol
October 25, 2018
Actually ***1/2: someone remembering Trollope can't write worse than that. Still I have to understand what he finds in British Cusine!!!!
March 22, 2021
A difficult novel to interpret beyond the limits of autobiography – those few sections that diverge in character are so meagre as remark little importance; and other sections only succeed in the knowledge of their origin. The many, many consecutive chapters arguing (vigorously) that English food is the very finest on earth are, in themselves, a strange and extensive aside. But when aware of Gissing’s situation – that he was malnourishing himself on French cuisine, and in desperation for a slice of roast mutton – this writing takes on a new aspect. The entire text is very much a report in abeyance: we dwell in the dream of Gissing, and a dream that requires its sublunary cousin in comparison. A man freed of poverty, women, associates, cities, and the rest of it. A fifty-year-old who, for some reason, seems on the precipice of death – Gissing was a decade younger and suffering the same malady. An exhaustion of the soul: a need for solitude, and quietude, and the singular beauty of nature. Those who are poor, and those who are in the depth of citydom, are kept from the silent glories around them. An especially affecting sequence considers the value of a sixpence – how easily it is lost, found, given, taken. How a small disc of metal can define how one experiences the light, the wind. Gissing/Ryecroft’s cavils against democracy are a developed and consistent ideology, but also seem in perfect accord with his emotional conundrum. Here is a man tired of people, tired of their ways and wants. He cannot imagine worse a world than to be subject to them all: one feels this was often enough the case, even if a case he made actual by his own tendencies. The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft is also, so far as I have read, Gissing’s most beautifully written novel. Those nostalgic passages, recalling the light of distant Italy, or Greece; and those descriptions of setting suns and falling leaves. They are all astoundingly vivid. I cannot think of a single passage so entirely affecting in the starkness of his previous novels. It seems in liberation of mind, Gissing/Ryecroft is liberated in pen. He dreams of Odysseus’ house, wrought from and round a tree; this dream of nature encompasses all. And while a great proportion of the text deals with the gruesome mutterings of a man who acts twice his age, between his castigations are so many wonders. A sad novel; a novel about a man at the edge of life. A glimpse of the next.
October 28, 2018
This is an interesting read on many levels. Is it a epistolary recap of the aging George Gissing? is it purely a work of fiction by Gissing? or is a combination of both, akin to Goethe's "Young Werther"?
Gissing's other novel "New Grub Street" (on my to-read list) was not as popular as this work. So this little volume touched a nerve in happy days of Fin de Siecle pre-war Britain of 1903. I know too little to make a judgement if this is autobiographic or not, however he passed away in late 1903 after this was published, I must conclude that a great deal of author must be in these pages.
One sees a certain frustration at Ryecroft's elbow and it spills over regularly when he gets carried away on "Englishness" and on how "Continentals" really don't understand the soul of the Englishman. More often this "bitterness" reflects on his life (what appears for most of his adult life) of penury. So apart from these odd ramblings I loved the cosiness of his surroundings after what appears to have been a challenging life. He explains that he now lives comfortably in his warm cottage in an idyllic rural landscape without the worry of where the next meal may come from. He doesn't go into great detail of his former existence but it is never far from his mind. His library provide a constant sustenance for his life that you can almost smell the books (wonderful "must"). I love the thoughtful sections when the reader with a pulse must take joy in his happy circumstances of late life that has some a smidge of financial security.....a wish we all have! This is worthy of four stars, it would have been five but the odd "British Empire" threads prevented that.
Gissing's other novel "New Grub Street" (on my to-read list) was not as popular as this work. So this little volume touched a nerve in happy days of Fin de Siecle pre-war Britain of 1903. I know too little to make a judgement if this is autobiographic or not, however he passed away in late 1903 after this was published, I must conclude that a great deal of author must be in these pages.
One sees a certain frustration at Ryecroft's elbow and it spills over regularly when he gets carried away on "Englishness" and on how "Continentals" really don't understand the soul of the Englishman. More often this "bitterness" reflects on his life (what appears for most of his adult life) of penury. So apart from these odd ramblings I loved the cosiness of his surroundings after what appears to have been a challenging life. He explains that he now lives comfortably in his warm cottage in an idyllic rural landscape without the worry of where the next meal may come from. He doesn't go into great detail of his former existence but it is never far from his mind. His library provide a constant sustenance for his life that you can almost smell the books (wonderful "must"). I love the thoughtful sections when the reader with a pulse must take joy in his happy circumstances of late life that has some a smidge of financial security.....a wish we all have! This is worthy of four stars, it would have been five but the odd "British Empire" threads prevented that.
September 16, 2023
Gissing, George - Private Papers Of Henry Ryecroft
One of my battered veterans, purchased decades earlier.
My edition is a leatherbound Modern Library from the 1920’s.
I find it altogether fitting for the text.
Ryecroft would be Gissing’s alter ego, faring better than the author. Ryecroft receives an unexpected inheritance and is able to retire to the countryside. There he observes, recollects, contemplates.
An older soul, our character is selectively nostalgic, possibly like many whose days are numbered.
The book is packed with quotable lines, and I include a fistful.
This may be better for seasoned readers, older than 50 perhaps, who can handle Victorian prose.
“It is because nations tend to stupidity and baseness that mankind moves so slowly; it is because individuals have a capacity for better things that it moves at all.
“Man in not made for peaceful intercourse with his fellows; he is by nature self-assertive, commonly aggressive, always critical in a more or less hostile spirit of any characteristic which seems strange to him.
“Ah! The books that one will never read again. They gave delight, perchance something more … yet never again shall I hold them in my hand; the years fly too quickly, and are too few.
“I know just as little about myself as I do about the Eternal Essence, and I have a haunting suspicion that I may be a mere automaton, my every thought and act due to some power which uses and deceives me.
“Once more, the year has come full circle. And how quickly; alas, how quickly! Can it be whole twelvemonth since the last spring? Enjoy the day, and, behold, it shrinks to a moment.”
One of my battered veterans, purchased decades earlier.
My edition is a leatherbound Modern Library from the 1920’s.
I find it altogether fitting for the text.
Ryecroft would be Gissing’s alter ego, faring better than the author. Ryecroft receives an unexpected inheritance and is able to retire to the countryside. There he observes, recollects, contemplates.
An older soul, our character is selectively nostalgic, possibly like many whose days are numbered.
The book is packed with quotable lines, and I include a fistful.
This may be better for seasoned readers, older than 50 perhaps, who can handle Victorian prose.
“It is because nations tend to stupidity and baseness that mankind moves so slowly; it is because individuals have a capacity for better things that it moves at all.
“Man in not made for peaceful intercourse with his fellows; he is by nature self-assertive, commonly aggressive, always critical in a more or less hostile spirit of any characteristic which seems strange to him.
“Ah! The books that one will never read again. They gave delight, perchance something more … yet never again shall I hold them in my hand; the years fly too quickly, and are too few.
“I know just as little about myself as I do about the Eternal Essence, and I have a haunting suspicion that I may be a mere automaton, my every thought and act due to some power which uses and deceives me.
“Once more, the year has come full circle. And how quickly; alas, how quickly! Can it be whole twelvemonth since the last spring? Enjoy the day, and, behold, it shrinks to a moment.”
January 2, 2025
As far as quotable sentences go this book is magic. In fact I have many boards of my pinterest account bedecked by Gissing's sentences as headers.
But sentences aside the book doesn't fit in the tenre of a "novel".
I do believe though that "the diary of Henry Royecroft" is telling of the time and stages the novel had to go through to arrive at the perfected genre of what we know as the English novel.
The novel is a product of the Victorian era known for the burgeoning of capitalism, liberalism, and therefor individualism. So much of Gissing's work point to matters of money and in this era the "ordinary" man became the hero of the novel, unlike previous ages which had kings and higher status people as the gero of the Epic.
Although granted recognition, this new man of the world had I no choice but to become a superman. The advent of capitalism and the age of science made it necessary for the new human to reframe his mind and outlook. The beginning sentences of one of the chapters of Private Papers reads as follows:
-I have been dull today, haunted by the thought of how much there is that I would fain know, and how little I can hope to learn. The scope of knowledge has become so vast."
All in all the english novel had some time ahead of itself when it would reach the mature form in which George Eliot, for example, wrote in. But here we have a sense of a beginning. I haven't read Gissings other works of which the titles recommend some need of action in the plot as for example Life on Grub Street" but this one read something like the collective imagination of the English people at that particular time of its history
But sentences aside the book doesn't fit in the tenre of a "novel".
I do believe though that "the diary of Henry Royecroft" is telling of the time and stages the novel had to go through to arrive at the perfected genre of what we know as the English novel.
The novel is a product of the Victorian era known for the burgeoning of capitalism, liberalism, and therefor individualism. So much of Gissing's work point to matters of money and in this era the "ordinary" man became the hero of the novel, unlike previous ages which had kings and higher status people as the gero of the Epic.
Although granted recognition, this new man of the world had I no choice but to become a superman. The advent of capitalism and the age of science made it necessary for the new human to reframe his mind and outlook. The beginning sentences of one of the chapters of Private Papers reads as follows:
-I have been dull today, haunted by the thought of how much there is that I would fain know, and how little I can hope to learn. The scope of knowledge has become so vast."
All in all the english novel had some time ahead of itself when it would reach the mature form in which George Eliot, for example, wrote in. But here we have a sense of a beginning. I haven't read Gissings other works of which the titles recommend some need of action in the plot as for example Life on Grub Street" but this one read something like the collective imagination of the English people at that particular time of its history
May 22, 2024
A wholly different Gissing from the Gissing of ‘New Grub Street.’ With no disrespect to any of them, it felt at times as if I were reading Charles Lamb or Dr Johnson (especially in his culinary comments!), Walton in his reflections of the country, or indeed any of the great essayists. The images of the countryside are so vivid - the parliament of swallows on his rooftop, planning for the great migration, is one that springs to mind; Ryecroft (or Gissing)’s love of the wild flowers of the different seasons over the cultivated beauties of formal gardens; the capacity of butter to reveal the meretriciousness of its maker; hypocrisy and Puritanism in the English; the luxury of leisure, of a fire, of buying a book without first reading about it in a catalogue; the futility and danger in the study of science for the sake of science. The memories of utter destitution in the days of labouring fruitlessly in London seem to vie with nostalgic remembrances of walking through London's poorer streets, with a choice of buying a book or a hot dinner for sixpence.
In short, if you only have to read one book by Gissing, choose this one. It might not have any Sturm und Drang about it, but its quiet reflection and serene view of a life ending in tranquillity has a persistent charm that few authors can offer.
In short, if you only have to read one book by Gissing, choose this one. It might not have any Sturm und Drang about it, but its quiet reflection and serene view of a life ending in tranquillity has a persistent charm that few authors can offer.
March 28, 2023
Gissing is a wonderful writer. While this book is not a conventional novel with a standard plot structure, it is full of beautiful writing and rich insights into late Victorian England. Some of the descriptions of London streets and countryside pastures are magical and draw the reader right in. Gissing also provides interesting asides into English cooking, social structure, authorship, and other musings of the time. I feel he was probably the best successor to Dickens, and, if I may say so, possibly a better writer in that his narrative is less flowery, and is a brilliant mix between purple Victorian prose and scant modern prose, in that he always fleshes his paragraphs out with vivid words and never skimps over the chance to describe a scene in favour of moving the story along. But he never overdoes this either. He is a well-balanced, textually rich author - and I look forward to diving into more of his work.
October 18, 2021
This 1903 fiction is not a novel. It belongs, I think, on the same shelf as George Eliot’s Impressions of Theophrastus Such (1879) and Fernando Pessoa’s posthumous opus, The Book of Disquiet. Like Pessoa’s “factless autobiography,” it is a series of observations by someone very much like the author himself, only Gissing makes the effort to pretend this is of a fictional character — like Eliot’s Such, though in Eliot’s case the subject was likely an attempt to make sense of her old friend and jilter, Herbert Spencer.
There is no plot. There is no story. It is just a series of observations, often quite interesting. It is less ponderous than Eliot’s work, and less provocative than Pessoa’s.
I recommend it if you are interested in British intellectual life c. 1903. I am, so I read it. If you are not, do not.
There is no plot. There is no story. It is just a series of observations, often quite interesting. It is less ponderous than Eliot’s work, and less provocative than Pessoa’s.
I recommend it if you are interested in British intellectual life c. 1903. I am, so I read it. If you are not, do not.
August 16, 2024
There is little doubt in my mind that Henry Ryecroft and George Gissing are one and the same person. The book reads like a journal or a diary. But because it is not described as being autobiographical, the author may give himself a freer hand. We see this in other works of his, but here it is particularly pronounced. It may be that Gissing felt inclined to write his autobiography, but that he chose an abstracted form with which to do it. There is no plot or story as such, but rather numerous short episodes - seemingly unconnected passages - a collection of observations and experiences. This format is both interesting and revealing and gives a different perspective of George Gissing the author. Towards the end of the book, and in contemplative mood, there is a sense that he is preparing himself and his readers for the final laying down of his pen.
October 28, 2019
I have read nothing else by George Gissing, so I don't know if some of this is meant as parody or if "Ryecroft" is simply Gissing's surrogate. Some parts of this book--especially in the Winter section--made me laugh out loud at the ridiculousness (e.g., English cooking is the best in the world--boiling really brings out the flavor). Other parts--especially when he writes about his love of books--made me think I'd found a kindred spirit. Essentially though, this book is the musings (somewhat like Thoreau's Walden) of a proto-hippy, book-loving, supremely-introverted twee Victorian narcissist who has separated himself from society to live out the last years of his life (he is 53). Interesting enough to have read the whole thing, but I'm not planning to read another book by Gissing any time soon.
July 27, 2021
"It is because nations tend to stupidity and baseness that mankind moves so slowly; it is because individuals have a capacity for better things that it moves at all.
"In my youth, looking at this man and that, I marvelled that humanity has made a little progress. Now, looking at men in the multitude, I marvel that they have advanced so far" (40).
"It has occurred to me that one might define Art as: an expression, satisfying and abiding, of the zest of life" (50).
"Lying in bed, I have watched the sky, studied the clouds, which--so long as they are clouds indeed, and not a mere waste if grey vapor--always have their beauty" (137-138).
"How I envy those who become prudent without thwacking of experience" (139).
"In my youth, looking at this man and that, I marvelled that humanity has made a little progress. Now, looking at men in the multitude, I marvel that they have advanced so far" (40).
"It has occurred to me that one might define Art as: an expression, satisfying and abiding, of the zest of life" (50).
"Lying in bed, I have watched the sky, studied the clouds, which--so long as they are clouds indeed, and not a mere waste if grey vapor--always have their beauty" (137-138).
"How I envy those who become prudent without thwacking of experience" (139).
January 26, 2020
I've read most of George Gissing's books and this is the only one I've not enjoyed.
It's a self indulgent exercise, a fictional memoir of the not very interesting Henry Ryecroft. Nothing happens. Thankfully the book is short.
The philosophical musings you'd put up with from a drunken friend. Hey, get another pint in.
It's a self indulgent exercise, a fictional memoir of the not very interesting Henry Ryecroft. Nothing happens. Thankfully the book is short.
The philosophical musings you'd put up with from a drunken friend. Hey, get another pint in.
April 16, 2023
I heard of George Gissing in an essay by George Orwell. This book certainly made me want to write and enjoy a retirement like the protagonist. I am most definitely going to read more Gissing and keep my eyes out for more of his works. Certainly seems more palatable than my first attempt at Thomas Hardy.
May 29, 2022
The Private Papers are melancholic reminisces about fictional writer's youth in London, thoughts and reflections on literature, publishing industry (of the time) and the art in general intercepted by a number of detailed descriptions of nature and idle life in the country.
April 15, 2022
This is really well done - I totally believed in the character of Henry. I wish I hadn't read about Gissing's own life afterwards, though, it spoiled it for me a little. And what about his daughter?
June 2, 2015
Don't think of this as a novel but as a collection of personal essays by a fictional character. I really liked the first half of the book and then it got dull. Though I found the pieces on English cooking funny (if the food is good, he says, it doesn't need sauce).
Still, all through I copied passages many of which made me nod to myself some of these I've shared below.
"In those days money represented nothing to me, nothing I cared to think about, but the acquisition of books."
"I cannot preserve more than a few fragments of what I read, yet read I shall, persistently, rejoicingly. Would I gather erudition for a future life? Indeed, it no longer troubles me that I forget. I have the happiness of the passing moment, and what more can mortal ask?"
"With a lifetime of dread experience behind me, I say that he who encourages any young man or woman to look for his living to “literature,” commits no less than a crime."
"No, the public which reads, in any sense of the word worth considering, is very, very small; the public which would feel no lack if all book-printing ceased to-morrow, is enormous."
Still, all through I copied passages many of which made me nod to myself some of these I've shared below.
"In those days money represented nothing to me, nothing I cared to think about, but the acquisition of books."
"I cannot preserve more than a few fragments of what I read, yet read I shall, persistently, rejoicingly. Would I gather erudition for a future life? Indeed, it no longer troubles me that I forget. I have the happiness of the passing moment, and what more can mortal ask?"
"With a lifetime of dread experience behind me, I say that he who encourages any young man or woman to look for his living to “literature,” commits no less than a crime."
"No, the public which reads, in any sense of the word worth considering, is very, very small; the public which would feel no lack if all book-printing ceased to-morrow, is enormous."
February 24, 2012
Slow, collection of essays
December 4, 2015
I kept finding myself copying quotes and sending them to friends. I will have to get a copy for myself. The 1915 publication I read had great paper. A real joy to read.
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