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Thyrza [annotated]
First published in 1887, Gissing intended 'Thyrza' to “contain the very spirit of London working-class life”. His story tells of Walter Egremont, an Oxford-trained idealist who gives lectures on literature to workers, some of them from his father’s Lambeth factory. Thyrza Trent, a young hat-trimmer, meets and falls in love with him, forsaking Gilbert Grail, an intelligent working man who Egremont has put in charge of his library.
In a tale of ambition, betrayal and disillusionment, Gissing’s heroine aspires to purity and self-improvement. Trapped by birth and circumstance, she is unable to escape her destiny. Thyrza Trent is the embodiment of Gissing’s preoccupation with sex, class and money, and through her he exposes a society instrinsically opposed to social mobility.
In a letter Gissing wrote, “Thyrza herself is one of the most beautiful dreams I ever had or shall have. I value the book really more than anything I have yet done.” Contemporary critics praised Gissing’s “profound…knowledge of the London poor” and his “courageous presentation of truth”. His unforgettable portrayal of urban poverty describes the “meanness and inveterate grime” of the Caledonian Road and a Lambeth “redolent with oleaginous matter”.
'Thyrza' is a powerful, shocking and unforgettable novel.
This new scholarly edition, the first for over twenty-five years, includes:
* critical introduction by Pierre Coustillas
* author biography
* select bibliography
* explanatory endnotes
* specially-commissioned maps
* essay on Thyrza‘s geography by Richard Dennis
* essay on Gissing’s revision of Thyrza by David Grylls
In a tale of ambition, betrayal and disillusionment, Gissing’s heroine aspires to purity and self-improvement. Trapped by birth and circumstance, she is unable to escape her destiny. Thyrza Trent is the embodiment of Gissing’s preoccupation with sex, class and money, and through her he exposes a society instrinsically opposed to social mobility.
In a letter Gissing wrote, “Thyrza herself is one of the most beautiful dreams I ever had or shall have. I value the book really more than anything I have yet done.” Contemporary critics praised Gissing’s “profound…knowledge of the London poor” and his “courageous presentation of truth”. His unforgettable portrayal of urban poverty describes the “meanness and inveterate grime” of the Caledonian Road and a Lambeth “redolent with oleaginous matter”.
'Thyrza' is a powerful, shocking and unforgettable novel.
This new scholarly edition, the first for over twenty-five years, includes:
* critical introduction by Pierre Coustillas
* author biography
* select bibliography
* explanatory endnotes
* specially-commissioned maps
* essay on Thyrza‘s geography by Richard Dennis
* essay on Gissing’s revision of Thyrza by David Grylls
570 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1887
5 people are currently reading
126 people want to read
About the author
George Gissing
397 books205 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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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
May 16, 2020
George Gissing is a remarkable novelist. He wrote twenty-three novels, published between 1880 and 1905, most now completely unknown except to the occasional academic specialist—and yet the quality of his writing seems to me consistently strong and distinctive. I have read five Gissing novels since 2014 (thanks, Goodreads, for that stat!) and each has stayed with me quite powerfully. (Oddly enough, his most famous novel, New Grub Street (1891) is perhaps the novel of his I liked the least.)
Thyrza (1887) falls relatively early in Gissing’s output. It is his fifth novel, written in 1887, when he was around thirty. It shares with the other novels I have read by him a quasi-journalistic curiosity about contemporary society, with a strong focus on class. The most original and vivid portions of the novel are set in working-class Lambeth, with a cast of male and female factory workers and shopkeepers, living a couple of precarious steps up from subsistence. Gissing lived in the area while he was researching the novel to ensure the authenticity of the setting. Other parts of the novel are set in Eastbourne and its rural hinterland, and in Ullswater, in the Lake District, in comfortable upper middle-class households. The working-class and middle-class casts of the novel are drawn together by two figures, both interestingly ambiguous: Walter Egremont, wealthy son of a working-class father who made a fortune through business, and his friend and surrogate mother, Mrs Ormonde, a philanthropist and world-class meddler in other people’s lives.
Gissing uses his rich and diverse cast to explore the question of how the condition and prospects of the London working poor can be improved: through revolutionary politics, through philanthropic initiatives, through religion, through education, through culture. The analysis is shrewd and often wry. Walter Egremont’s idealism (he sets out to improve the lot of Lambeth workers through a series of educational projects) leads to unintentional devastating consequences for the very people he is trying to help. Meanwhile, the careerist politician James Dalmaine, a more peripheral, though sharply-drawn character, pursues radical politics for less admirable motives than Walter, but to better effect.
Thyrza’s themes are not limited to the social and political. Romantic love and its disruptive power is another, unexpected theme of the book (unexpected for Gissing). An intellectually aspiring factory worker to whom Walter offers his patronage is given the symbolic name of Gilbert Grail, and several of the characters in the book may be seen as pursuing grail-like quests for something or someone they are unable to attain. The protagonist, Thyrza Trent, a strikingly beautiful young working-class girl, is the object of various men’s unrequited desire, before being mowed down by an impossible passion herself.
I could go on. This is a rich novel, which becomes more satisfying in retrospect as you parse its complex, often ironic, narrative patterning. The characterization is very strong, as well: not only major characters like Walter and Gilbert and Mrs Ormonde, or Thyrza and her sister Lydia, but also lesser figures like Walter’s on-off love interest Annabel Newthorpe, Thyrza’s grandfather Mr Boddy, and Annabel’s worldly cousin Paula are all credible, distinctive, and well-judged. The only portion of the novel I was less keen on was a tedious and rather crude subplot about a radical poetaster, Harold Emerson, and his long-suffering wife, Clara. I was interested to hear that Gissing cut this episode in a later revision of the novel. (I read it in Victorian Secrets’ edition of the original 1887 version.)
A bonus of reading this novel was making the acquaintance of the three elegies by Byron of 1811 from which Gissing took the name of his protagonist, written to mourn a young man, John Edleston, to whom Byron was romantically attached. The Thyrza poems are very beautiful and thematically resonant in relation to Gissing’s novel. Reading them after completing Thyrza added a still further stratum of meaning to this intricately layered and unfairly near-forgotten work.
Thyrza (1887) falls relatively early in Gissing’s output. It is his fifth novel, written in 1887, when he was around thirty. It shares with the other novels I have read by him a quasi-journalistic curiosity about contemporary society, with a strong focus on class. The most original and vivid portions of the novel are set in working-class Lambeth, with a cast of male and female factory workers and shopkeepers, living a couple of precarious steps up from subsistence. Gissing lived in the area while he was researching the novel to ensure the authenticity of the setting. Other parts of the novel are set in Eastbourne and its rural hinterland, and in Ullswater, in the Lake District, in comfortable upper middle-class households. The working-class and middle-class casts of the novel are drawn together by two figures, both interestingly ambiguous: Walter Egremont, wealthy son of a working-class father who made a fortune through business, and his friend and surrogate mother, Mrs Ormonde, a philanthropist and world-class meddler in other people’s lives.
Gissing uses his rich and diverse cast to explore the question of how the condition and prospects of the London working poor can be improved: through revolutionary politics, through philanthropic initiatives, through religion, through education, through culture. The analysis is shrewd and often wry. Walter Egremont’s idealism (he sets out to improve the lot of Lambeth workers through a series of educational projects) leads to unintentional devastating consequences for the very people he is trying to help. Meanwhile, the careerist politician James Dalmaine, a more peripheral, though sharply-drawn character, pursues radical politics for less admirable motives than Walter, but to better effect.
Thyrza’s themes are not limited to the social and political. Romantic love and its disruptive power is another, unexpected theme of the book (unexpected for Gissing). An intellectually aspiring factory worker to whom Walter offers his patronage is given the symbolic name of Gilbert Grail, and several of the characters in the book may be seen as pursuing grail-like quests for something or someone they are unable to attain. The protagonist, Thyrza Trent, a strikingly beautiful young working-class girl, is the object of various men’s unrequited desire, before being mowed down by an impossible passion herself.
I could go on. This is a rich novel, which becomes more satisfying in retrospect as you parse its complex, often ironic, narrative patterning. The characterization is very strong, as well: not only major characters like Walter and Gilbert and Mrs Ormonde, or Thyrza and her sister Lydia, but also lesser figures like Walter’s on-off love interest Annabel Newthorpe, Thyrza’s grandfather Mr Boddy, and Annabel’s worldly cousin Paula are all credible, distinctive, and well-judged. The only portion of the novel I was less keen on was a tedious and rather crude subplot about a radical poetaster, Harold Emerson, and his long-suffering wife, Clara. I was interested to hear that Gissing cut this episode in a later revision of the novel. (I read it in Victorian Secrets’ edition of the original 1887 version.)
A bonus of reading this novel was making the acquaintance of the three elegies by Byron of 1811 from which Gissing took the name of his protagonist, written to mourn a young man, John Edleston, to whom Byron was romantically attached. The Thyrza poems are very beautiful and thematically resonant in relation to Gissing’s novel. Reading them after completing Thyrza added a still further stratum of meaning to this intricately layered and unfairly near-forgotten work.
March 7, 2024
A New Edition Of Gissing's Thyrza
The late Victorian novelist George Gissing (1857 -- 1905) is best known for "New Grub Street" and "The Odd Women", two books that he wrote in mid-life. Other that these two novels, Gissing's works frequently are difficult to find. Interested readers frequently must search for dubious offprint editions. This is particularly the case for Gissing's earlier books which have a strongly personal, autobiographical component. Of his first seven novels, six are set among the working class poor of London.
A small English publisher called Victorian Secrets has assumed the role of publishing Victorian novels that tend to be forgotten, including several novels of Gissing. In 2010, Victorian Secrets published Gissing's rare first novel, "Workers in the Dawn", followed in 2011 by Gissing's third novel, "Demos". Victorian Secrets has now published Gissing's fifth novel, "Thyrza", written in 1887 and published in a revised edition in 1891. As does its companions, the Victorian Secrets edition of "Thyrza" is beautifully produced with a readable, reliable version of the text. Pierre Coustillas, the distinguished Gissing scholar and the author of a recent three-volume biography, edited the volume, as well as the earlier two volumes, prepared the endnotes, and wrote an insightful introduction to the book. The introduction includes as well a short biography of Gissing and a bibliography of studies of "Thyrza". The edition includes as well an essay by David Gryllis, Kellogg College, Oxford, discussing the changes Gissing made in the book between the first version in 1887 and the revised version of 1891. Finally, the book includes maps of the two "worlds" inhabited by the primary characters of the book, Thyrza Trent and Walter Egremont. Thyrza's world centers upon the working class community of Lambeth while Egremont is more at home in the Lake District and in Eastbourne.
While this edition makes "Thyrza" accessible to new readers, it offers something new to those who already know the book. Virtually every edition and reprint of the book uses Gissing's 1891 revision. In this edition, Coustillas opts to use Gissing's original 1887 text. He thus takes an already long text and makes it somewhat longer. In the revised version, Gissing eliminated some narrative editorializing and also cut an extensive sub-plot that occurs in the final third of the novel. Readers familiar with other editions of "Thyrza" will be able to compare the two versions. Those new to the book will have a longer read than otherwise, but they will get to know "Thyrza". It is valuable for readers devoted to Gissing to have the original version available.
"But we here are mortals, and, being mortals, of mortals let us sing" Gissing aptly took this verse of Theocritus as the epigraph for "Thyrza." The novel is at once a portrayal of passion and love, and their importance and rarity, and a description of the life of workers in Lambeth. The book is set over a four year period in the early 1880's. Walter Egremont, an educated wealthy young man from a working class background decides to go to Lambeth to present a series of lectures for the uplift of working men. He finds only one person receptive to his aims, Gilbert Grail, 35, who works at drudgery as a candle maker. Grail gets engaged to the young, beautiful Thyrza Trent, 16, whom he has long loved from afar before Egremont offers him a position in a free library he proposes to establish in Lambeth. Egremont and Thyrza meet soon thereafter, are strongly attracted, and fall in love without acknowledging this to each other. A long, complex tale follows in which Thyrza runs away and nearly dies and Egremont spends two years in America to get a better understanding of himself and his feelings. Egremont is idealistic, well-meaning, but weak and ineffectual. Thyrza is an idealized character. The book includes many subthemes and well-developed secondary characters, including Thyrza's practical-minded sister Lydia, Thyrza's friend, Totty Nancarrow, Thyzra's erstwhile suitor, Luke Ackroyd, Annabel, an educated young woman courted at various times by Egremont, and Mrs. Ormonde, a woman friend and mother figure for Egremont who plays a pivotal role in the denoument of the story.
Much of the force of "Thyrza" derives from its descriptive passages, of nature, of upper-class England, but especially of the streets, shops and people of Lambeth. For example, in a scene in which a group of poor children dance to a barrel-organ playing on Lambeth Walk, Gissing describes (Chapter IX):
"the life of men who toil without hope, yet with the hunger of an unshaped desire; of women in whom the sweetness of their sex is perishing under labour and misery; the laugh, the song of the girl who strives to enjoy her year or two of youthful vigour, knowing the darkness of the years to come; the careless defiance of the youth who feels his blood and revolts against the lot which would tame it; all that is purely human in these darkened multitudes speaks to you as you listen. It is the self-conscious striving of a nature, which knows not what it would attain, which deforms a true thought by gross expression, which clutches at the beautiful and soils it with foul hands."
As with much of Gissing, "Thyrza" is a mixture of social realism and romantic love. For all its emphsis on Lambeth and on the difficulty of uplifting the poor through programs of literary education, the focus of this novel is on passion and of the rarity and supreme importance in Gissing's eyes of true love. The heroine, Thyzra, is willing to break her engagement because she feels the force of love, physical as well as intellectual for Egremont. Egremont in the last analysis lacks the courage to act upon his feelings, and his life remains forever poor and atrophied as a result.
I was grateful for the opportunity to revisit "Thyrza" in this new Victorian Secrets edtition. The length, intricacy, and Victorian writing style mean that Gissing's novel will never be a book for everyone. But the Victorian Secrets edition should allow "Thyrza" to find its own self-selected group of readers.
Robin Friedman
The late Victorian novelist George Gissing (1857 -- 1905) is best known for "New Grub Street" and "The Odd Women", two books that he wrote in mid-life. Other that these two novels, Gissing's works frequently are difficult to find. Interested readers frequently must search for dubious offprint editions. This is particularly the case for Gissing's earlier books which have a strongly personal, autobiographical component. Of his first seven novels, six are set among the working class poor of London.
A small English publisher called Victorian Secrets has assumed the role of publishing Victorian novels that tend to be forgotten, including several novels of Gissing. In 2010, Victorian Secrets published Gissing's rare first novel, "Workers in the Dawn", followed in 2011 by Gissing's third novel, "Demos". Victorian Secrets has now published Gissing's fifth novel, "Thyrza", written in 1887 and published in a revised edition in 1891. As does its companions, the Victorian Secrets edition of "Thyrza" is beautifully produced with a readable, reliable version of the text. Pierre Coustillas, the distinguished Gissing scholar and the author of a recent three-volume biography, edited the volume, as well as the earlier two volumes, prepared the endnotes, and wrote an insightful introduction to the book. The introduction includes as well a short biography of Gissing and a bibliography of studies of "Thyrza". The edition includes as well an essay by David Gryllis, Kellogg College, Oxford, discussing the changes Gissing made in the book between the first version in 1887 and the revised version of 1891. Finally, the book includes maps of the two "worlds" inhabited by the primary characters of the book, Thyrza Trent and Walter Egremont. Thyrza's world centers upon the working class community of Lambeth while Egremont is more at home in the Lake District and in Eastbourne.
While this edition makes "Thyrza" accessible to new readers, it offers something new to those who already know the book. Virtually every edition and reprint of the book uses Gissing's 1891 revision. In this edition, Coustillas opts to use Gissing's original 1887 text. He thus takes an already long text and makes it somewhat longer. In the revised version, Gissing eliminated some narrative editorializing and also cut an extensive sub-plot that occurs in the final third of the novel. Readers familiar with other editions of "Thyrza" will be able to compare the two versions. Those new to the book will have a longer read than otherwise, but they will get to know "Thyrza". It is valuable for readers devoted to Gissing to have the original version available.
"But we here are mortals, and, being mortals, of mortals let us sing" Gissing aptly took this verse of Theocritus as the epigraph for "Thyrza." The novel is at once a portrayal of passion and love, and their importance and rarity, and a description of the life of workers in Lambeth. The book is set over a four year period in the early 1880's. Walter Egremont, an educated wealthy young man from a working class background decides to go to Lambeth to present a series of lectures for the uplift of working men. He finds only one person receptive to his aims, Gilbert Grail, 35, who works at drudgery as a candle maker. Grail gets engaged to the young, beautiful Thyrza Trent, 16, whom he has long loved from afar before Egremont offers him a position in a free library he proposes to establish in Lambeth. Egremont and Thyrza meet soon thereafter, are strongly attracted, and fall in love without acknowledging this to each other. A long, complex tale follows in which Thyrza runs away and nearly dies and Egremont spends two years in America to get a better understanding of himself and his feelings. Egremont is idealistic, well-meaning, but weak and ineffectual. Thyrza is an idealized character. The book includes many subthemes and well-developed secondary characters, including Thyrza's practical-minded sister Lydia, Thyrza's friend, Totty Nancarrow, Thyzra's erstwhile suitor, Luke Ackroyd, Annabel, an educated young woman courted at various times by Egremont, and Mrs. Ormonde, a woman friend and mother figure for Egremont who plays a pivotal role in the denoument of the story.
Much of the force of "Thyrza" derives from its descriptive passages, of nature, of upper-class England, but especially of the streets, shops and people of Lambeth. For example, in a scene in which a group of poor children dance to a barrel-organ playing on Lambeth Walk, Gissing describes (Chapter IX):
"the life of men who toil without hope, yet with the hunger of an unshaped desire; of women in whom the sweetness of their sex is perishing under labour and misery; the laugh, the song of the girl who strives to enjoy her year or two of youthful vigour, knowing the darkness of the years to come; the careless defiance of the youth who feels his blood and revolts against the lot which would tame it; all that is purely human in these darkened multitudes speaks to you as you listen. It is the self-conscious striving of a nature, which knows not what it would attain, which deforms a true thought by gross expression, which clutches at the beautiful and soils it with foul hands."
As with much of Gissing, "Thyrza" is a mixture of social realism and romantic love. For all its emphsis on Lambeth and on the difficulty of uplifting the poor through programs of literary education, the focus of this novel is on passion and of the rarity and supreme importance in Gissing's eyes of true love. The heroine, Thyzra, is willing to break her engagement because she feels the force of love, physical as well as intellectual for Egremont. Egremont in the last analysis lacks the courage to act upon his feelings, and his life remains forever poor and atrophied as a result.
I was grateful for the opportunity to revisit "Thyrza" in this new Victorian Secrets edtition. The length, intricacy, and Victorian writing style mean that Gissing's novel will never be a book for everyone. But the Victorian Secrets edition should allow "Thyrza" to find its own self-selected group of readers.
Robin Friedman
July 30, 2024
EDIT
(13/06/23): This novel was completed and this review posted in April 2016. Seven years and nine Gissing novels later, I definitely would (contrary to my final statement) be willing to read it again! :-)
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For me, this book was a downer. Intellectually, I can appreciate the technical skill of the author and the interesting commentaries on social, political, and philosophical issues of late Victorian England. However, it is a very sad story. Cloudy, cold, and leaf-less "April in Atlantic Canada" was not an ideal time to read it. But . . . I lived to tell the tale, so here is the gist of the tale.
Three men are in love with the same young woman - you guessed it - Thyrza! Beautiful, petite, golden-haired Thyrza Trent, who works long hours as a needle-woman, sings like a songbird, and accepts without argument whatever life hands to her. Well, almost.
It makes for a good yarn, to be sure, this notion of three men pursuing one innocent and malleable young woman. Luke Ackroyd, is the salt-of-the-earth working-man - not the macho sterotype but instead a sensitive, honest, loyal, non-judgmental, and independent fellow. Very likeable but a bit flighty in matters of the heart.
Gilbert Grail is more difficult to warm up to but no less likeable. Also a factory worker, but a bookish and insecure introvert, he has few friends. Approaching mid-life, Gilbert lines the walls of his little parlour with book-laden shelves. He shares with his mother a small but respectable suite beneath the single room where Thyrza lives with her "motherly" older sister, Lydia. Convenient. Yes, Gilbert is convenient - always available and willing to help the people he loves.
Rounding out the trio of Thyrza's admirers is the independently-wealthy Oxford student, Walter Egremont. Walter is the ultimate idealist, devoting his time to words and ideas. Walter is not your stereotypical arrogant aristocrat; politically he leans to the left and is committed to improving the lot of the working class. Free from the requirement to earn his living, he longs to devote his time and fortune to a worthy cause. A grand idea, a most honourable one in fact, this proves to be his undoing.
Well, you might be thinking, with three men wanting Thyrza's hand in marriage, there is bound to be a happy ending. Well . . . that's for you to discover. Lack of communication, incorrect assumptions, personal feelings of insecurity, fear of breaking social "rules", secrecy and deception, and just plain meddling combine to make a captivating story with a surprising (and, for me, disappointing) ending.
Am I glad that I read this book? Most definitely. Would I be willing to read it again? Most definitely not.
By the same author
The Paying Guest (26/11/15) 3 stars
Thyrza (28/04/16) 3 stars
A Life's Morning (30/04/16) 3 stars
The Odd Women (20/08/20) 4 stars
Sleeping Fires (19/11/20) 4 stars
Our Friend the Charlatan (19/01/21) 4 stars
The Crown of Life (02/03/21) 4 stars
Eve's Ransom (02/95/21) 4 stars
Human Odds and Ends: Stories and Sketches (30/06/21) 3 stars
The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories (07/09/21) 4 stars
The Emancipated, Volume 1 (28/02/22) 3 stars
The Emancipated, Volume 2 (14/03/22) 4 stars
The Emancipated, Volume 3 (04/04/22) 5 stars
Sins of the father,: And other tales, (16/11/23) 4 stars
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For me, this book was a downer. Intellectually, I can appreciate the technical skill of the author and the interesting commentaries on social, political, and philosophical issues of late Victorian England. However, it is a very sad story. Cloudy, cold, and leaf-less "April in Atlantic Canada" was not an ideal time to read it. But . . . I lived to tell the tale, so here is the gist of the tale.
Three men are in love with the same young woman - you guessed it - Thyrza! Beautiful, petite, golden-haired Thyrza Trent, who works long hours as a needle-woman, sings like a songbird, and accepts without argument whatever life hands to her. Well, almost.
It makes for a good yarn, to be sure, this notion of three men pursuing one innocent and malleable young woman. Luke Ackroyd, is the salt-of-the-earth working-man - not the macho sterotype but instead a sensitive, honest, loyal, non-judgmental, and independent fellow. Very likeable but a bit flighty in matters of the heart.
Gilbert Grail is more difficult to warm up to but no less likeable. Also a factory worker, but a bookish and insecure introvert, he has few friends. Approaching mid-life, Gilbert lines the walls of his little parlour with book-laden shelves. He shares with his mother a small but respectable suite beneath the single room where Thyrza lives with her "motherly" older sister, Lydia. Convenient. Yes, Gilbert is convenient - always available and willing to help the people he loves.
Rounding out the trio of Thyrza's admirers is the independently-wealthy Oxford student, Walter Egremont. Walter is the ultimate idealist, devoting his time to words and ideas. Walter is not your stereotypical arrogant aristocrat; politically he leans to the left and is committed to improving the lot of the working class. Free from the requirement to earn his living, he longs to devote his time and fortune to a worthy cause. A grand idea, a most honourable one in fact, this proves to be his undoing.
Well, you might be thinking, with three men wanting Thyrza's hand in marriage, there is bound to be a happy ending. Well . . . that's for you to discover. Lack of communication, incorrect assumptions, personal feelings of insecurity, fear of breaking social "rules", secrecy and deception, and just plain meddling combine to make a captivating story with a surprising (and, for me, disappointing) ending.
Am I glad that I read this book? Most definitely. Would I be willing to read it again? Most definitely not.
By the same author
The Paying Guest (26/11/15) 3 stars
Thyrza (28/04/16) 3 stars
A Life's Morning (30/04/16) 3 stars
The Odd Women (20/08/20) 4 stars
Sleeping Fires (19/11/20) 4 stars
Our Friend the Charlatan (19/01/21) 4 stars
The Crown of Life (02/03/21) 4 stars
Eve's Ransom (02/95/21) 4 stars
Human Odds and Ends: Stories and Sketches (30/06/21) 3 stars
The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories (07/09/21) 4 stars
The Emancipated, Volume 1 (28/02/22) 3 stars
The Emancipated, Volume 2 (14/03/22) 4 stars
The Emancipated, Volume 3 (04/04/22) 5 stars
Sins of the father,: And other tales, (16/11/23) 4 stars
January 12, 2025
Thyrza
"And thou art dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth;
And form so soft and charms so rare
Too soon return'd to Earth!"
George Gordon Lord Byron, "Elegy on Thyrza"
George Gissing's (1857 -- 1903)novel "Thyrza" (1887) centers upon the death of a beautiful, young woman with the unusual name in Byron's poem. The book was Gissing's fifth published novel and one of a series of early works in which he explored the lives of the London poor. A young naive Gissing sold the copyright to the book for a pittance, although the novel would achieve some success during his lifetime. "Thyrza" is a lengthy book with a difficult and intricate plot and a distinctly dated Victorian writing style. These considerations help explain why the book is little read today. But I love the book and wanted at least to raise awareness of it in this review. With the advent of digitalization, it is easy for those who wish to pursue this novel to do so. I offer the following bare outline of the novel.
Most of the story is set in Lambeth, a poor working-class area of London. The characters are not at the bottom of the economic ladder, but they are poor factory workers who must work long hours at thankless, mindless drudgery to live. Much of the book is a story of class conflict. The primary male character is Walter Egremont, a young man of wealth who has inherited his father's oil-cloth factory. Egremont is weak, unfocused, but well-meaning. As with many people today, he does not know what to do with his life. At length he forms the plan of giving lectures on English literature to a select group of workers in Lambeth to raise their perspective on life from their day to day activities and to instill in select individuals a love of beauty and learning. Before leaving for his planned mission in Lambeth, Egremont proposes to a lovely young woman of his own class, Annabel, who rejects him.
Egremont's lectures are received indifferently in Lambeth, but he presses on and tries to fund and establish a free library in the community. He asks a middle aged candle worker named Gilbert Grail, who has read extensively during a harried life, to serve as the librarian. Gilbert uses the opportunity for economic freedom that Egremont has offered him to propose to the beautiful and frail Thyrza Trent, age 17, with whom he has shared his love of literature and reading, and whom he has long loved from afar. Thyzra has a beautiful, untrained singing voice. Thyrza accepts Grail's proposal. As the novel goes forward, Thyrza falls in love with Egremont. Egremont loves Thyrza as well but, because of her engagement to Grail, tries to suppress his feelings. Shamed at breaking her engagement to Grail, Thyrza runs away from Lambeth and almost dies.
She is rescued by an elderly woman friend of Egremont's, Mrs. Ormonde, who tries to make a lady of Thyrza (a Pygmalion-type theme is common in Gissing) and to train her heretofore untutored singing voice. Ormonde opposes Egremont's passion and contemplated marriage to Thyrza on grounds that the two are of radically different and irreconciliable social classes and backgrounds. She persuades Egremont to spend two years away in America after which, she promises, she will not interfere if Egremont decides to propose to Thyrza. At the close of the two years, Egremont's idealism much diminished, Mrs Ormonde again persuades Egremont not to propose to Thyrza. Heartbroken, Thyzra returns to Lambeth and offers to marry her original suitor, Gilbert Grail. But she dies before the marriage can take place. Egremont then proposes again to Annabel and is accepted. In accepting, Annabel tells Egremont that he has missed the opportunity to make something valuable of his life by marrying Thyrza. The marriage of Annabel and Egremont will be comfortable but dull and passionless.
Much of the force of "Thyrza" derives from its descriptive passages, of nature, of upper-class England, but especially of the streets, shops and people of Lambeth. For example, in a scene in which a group of poor children dance to a barrel-organ playing on Lambeth Walk, Gissing describes (Chapter IX):
"the life of men who toil without hope, yet with the hunger of an unshaped desire; of women in whom the sweetness of their sex is perishing under labour and misery; the laugh, the song of the girl who strives to enjoy her year or two of youthful vigour, knowing the darkness of the years to come; the careless defiance of the youth who feels his blood and revolts against the lot which would tame it; all that is purely human in these darkened multitudes speaks to you as you listen. It is the self-conscious striving of a nature, which knows not what it would attain, which deforms a true thought by gross expression, which clutches at the beautiful and soils it with foul hands."
Gissing offers sympathetic, rounded portrayals of many people of Lambeth, including Thyzra's older sister Lydia, Gilbert Grail, a working girl named Totty Nanacarrow, a young man named Luke Ackroyd who, like Egremont, has difficulty finding direction for his life. He ultimately marries Lydia. Egremont, the most modern character in the tale with his vacillation, good intention and ultimate lack of passion or commitment, receives a convincing portrayal. Thyrza herself is an idealization.
As with much of Gissing, "Thyrza" is a mixture of social realism and romantic love. For all its emphsis on Lambeth and on the difficulty of uplifting the poor through programs of literary education, the focus of this novel is on passion and of the rarity and supreme importance in Gissing's eyes of true love. The heroine, Thyzra, is willing to break her engagement because she feels the force of love, physical as well as intellectual for Egremont. Egremont in the last analysis lacks the courage to act upon his feelings, and his life remains forever poor and atrophied as a result.
While the story threatens at times to lapse into sentimentality, "Thyrza" is a deeply-felt and thoughtful novel. It will never be widely read but its name deserves to be known. "Thyrza" will continue to find its own small group of readers.
Robin Friedman
"And thou art dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth;
And form so soft and charms so rare
Too soon return'd to Earth!"
George Gordon Lord Byron, "Elegy on Thyrza"
George Gissing's (1857 -- 1903)novel "Thyrza" (1887) centers upon the death of a beautiful, young woman with the unusual name in Byron's poem. The book was Gissing's fifth published novel and one of a series of early works in which he explored the lives of the London poor. A young naive Gissing sold the copyright to the book for a pittance, although the novel would achieve some success during his lifetime. "Thyrza" is a lengthy book with a difficult and intricate plot and a distinctly dated Victorian writing style. These considerations help explain why the book is little read today. But I love the book and wanted at least to raise awareness of it in this review. With the advent of digitalization, it is easy for those who wish to pursue this novel to do so. I offer the following bare outline of the novel.
Most of the story is set in Lambeth, a poor working-class area of London. The characters are not at the bottom of the economic ladder, but they are poor factory workers who must work long hours at thankless, mindless drudgery to live. Much of the book is a story of class conflict. The primary male character is Walter Egremont, a young man of wealth who has inherited his father's oil-cloth factory. Egremont is weak, unfocused, but well-meaning. As with many people today, he does not know what to do with his life. At length he forms the plan of giving lectures on English literature to a select group of workers in Lambeth to raise their perspective on life from their day to day activities and to instill in select individuals a love of beauty and learning. Before leaving for his planned mission in Lambeth, Egremont proposes to a lovely young woman of his own class, Annabel, who rejects him.
Egremont's lectures are received indifferently in Lambeth, but he presses on and tries to fund and establish a free library in the community. He asks a middle aged candle worker named Gilbert Grail, who has read extensively during a harried life, to serve as the librarian. Gilbert uses the opportunity for economic freedom that Egremont has offered him to propose to the beautiful and frail Thyrza Trent, age 17, with whom he has shared his love of literature and reading, and whom he has long loved from afar. Thyzra has a beautiful, untrained singing voice. Thyrza accepts Grail's proposal. As the novel goes forward, Thyrza falls in love with Egremont. Egremont loves Thyrza as well but, because of her engagement to Grail, tries to suppress his feelings. Shamed at breaking her engagement to Grail, Thyrza runs away from Lambeth and almost dies.
She is rescued by an elderly woman friend of Egremont's, Mrs. Ormonde, who tries to make a lady of Thyrza (a Pygmalion-type theme is common in Gissing) and to train her heretofore untutored singing voice. Ormonde opposes Egremont's passion and contemplated marriage to Thyrza on grounds that the two are of radically different and irreconciliable social classes and backgrounds. She persuades Egremont to spend two years away in America after which, she promises, she will not interfere if Egremont decides to propose to Thyrza. At the close of the two years, Egremont's idealism much diminished, Mrs Ormonde again persuades Egremont not to propose to Thyrza. Heartbroken, Thyzra returns to Lambeth and offers to marry her original suitor, Gilbert Grail. But she dies before the marriage can take place. Egremont then proposes again to Annabel and is accepted. In accepting, Annabel tells Egremont that he has missed the opportunity to make something valuable of his life by marrying Thyrza. The marriage of Annabel and Egremont will be comfortable but dull and passionless.
Much of the force of "Thyrza" derives from its descriptive passages, of nature, of upper-class England, but especially of the streets, shops and people of Lambeth. For example, in a scene in which a group of poor children dance to a barrel-organ playing on Lambeth Walk, Gissing describes (Chapter IX):
"the life of men who toil without hope, yet with the hunger of an unshaped desire; of women in whom the sweetness of their sex is perishing under labour and misery; the laugh, the song of the girl who strives to enjoy her year or two of youthful vigour, knowing the darkness of the years to come; the careless defiance of the youth who feels his blood and revolts against the lot which would tame it; all that is purely human in these darkened multitudes speaks to you as you listen. It is the self-conscious striving of a nature, which knows not what it would attain, which deforms a true thought by gross expression, which clutches at the beautiful and soils it with foul hands."
Gissing offers sympathetic, rounded portrayals of many people of Lambeth, including Thyzra's older sister Lydia, Gilbert Grail, a working girl named Totty Nanacarrow, a young man named Luke Ackroyd who, like Egremont, has difficulty finding direction for his life. He ultimately marries Lydia. Egremont, the most modern character in the tale with his vacillation, good intention and ultimate lack of passion or commitment, receives a convincing portrayal. Thyrza herself is an idealization.
As with much of Gissing, "Thyrza" is a mixture of social realism and romantic love. For all its emphsis on Lambeth and on the difficulty of uplifting the poor through programs of literary education, the focus of this novel is on passion and of the rarity and supreme importance in Gissing's eyes of true love. The heroine, Thyzra, is willing to break her engagement because she feels the force of love, physical as well as intellectual for Egremont. Egremont in the last analysis lacks the courage to act upon his feelings, and his life remains forever poor and atrophied as a result.
While the story threatens at times to lapse into sentimentality, "Thyrza" is a deeply-felt and thoughtful novel. It will never be widely read but its name deserves to be known. "Thyrza" will continue to find its own small group of readers.
Robin Friedman
September 12, 2014
For all those interested in Victoriana, Gissing might be your man. He called this his personal favorite and of the works I have read by him, I have to agree.
There is much romance about the Victorian age, but not much romance about the poor of London at that time. This is a story about Thyrza Trent who represents a poor woman in England who would have had the intelligence to do many things if she had only had the money. The gulf between the haves and the have-nots is at the center of this book. Thyrza is in love with a man above her station and he is in love with her but, through the tenor of the times and because of betrayal, it is not to be. It just wasn't the "done thing" to marry out of your class.
Thyrza is loved by Gilbert Grail, who is of her class, but she cannot return that love after meeting Walter Egremont. Grail loses an opportunity to step up in life because of the triangle and settles for what is expected of him.
In all of Gissing's novels, the Victorian age comes alive with all of its simplicity and blemishes.
Quotes: ""Alas! she had a drunken mother, and spent a month or two of every year in the hospital, for her day's work overtaxed her strength. She was one of those fated toilers, to struggle on as long as anyone would employ her, then to fall among the forgotten wretched. And she sang of May-bloom and love, of love that had never come near her and that she would never know; sang, with her eyes upon the beer-stained table, in a public-house amid the backways of Lambeth."
"Few things in life turn out as we desire; to have done one's best with a good intention is much to look back upon - very few have more."
"The happy people of the world are the dull, unimaginative beings from whom the gods, in their kindness, have veiled all vision of the rising and the setting day, of sea-limits, and of the stars of the night, whose ears are thickened against the hungry cry of music, where thought finds nowhere mystery."
There is much romance about the Victorian age, but not much romance about the poor of London at that time. This is a story about Thyrza Trent who represents a poor woman in England who would have had the intelligence to do many things if she had only had the money. The gulf between the haves and the have-nots is at the center of this book. Thyrza is in love with a man above her station and he is in love with her but, through the tenor of the times and because of betrayal, it is not to be. It just wasn't the "done thing" to marry out of your class.
Thyrza is loved by Gilbert Grail, who is of her class, but she cannot return that love after meeting Walter Egremont. Grail loses an opportunity to step up in life because of the triangle and settles for what is expected of him.
In all of Gissing's novels, the Victorian age comes alive with all of its simplicity and blemishes.
Quotes: ""Alas! she had a drunken mother, and spent a month or two of every year in the hospital, for her day's work overtaxed her strength. She was one of those fated toilers, to struggle on as long as anyone would employ her, then to fall among the forgotten wretched. And she sang of May-bloom and love, of love that had never come near her and that she would never know; sang, with her eyes upon the beer-stained table, in a public-house amid the backways of Lambeth."
"Few things in life turn out as we desire; to have done one's best with a good intention is much to look back upon - very few have more."
"The happy people of the world are the dull, unimaginative beings from whom the gods, in their kindness, have veiled all vision of the rising and the setting day, of sea-limits, and of the stars of the night, whose ears are thickened against the hungry cry of music, where thought finds nowhere mystery."
February 10, 2020
Heart-breaking, warm and deep-felt. Among my favorite by Gissing. The story is framed beautifully, the characters inter-mix in such naturally tragic mis-jointure of movements. It has the beauty and tragic fatalism, the loving characters grow close to you.
May 26, 2021
After "Demos" Gissing felt he still had another working class
novel in him - this time he wanted to concentrate on working
girls and the way they were exploited. Gissing's novels are
grim and depressing because they mirror his own life. Like
Ergemont and Gilbert Grail, Gissing felt the way to elevate
workers and lower classes was through literature and books
(earlier in "Thyrza" Grail had sadly shook his head because
his two companions Bunce and Ackroyd had professed interest
only in scientific books).
Earlier in his life Gissing had married a young prostitute,
Nell Harrison, in order to teach and educate her but by the time
"Thyrza" was being sent to the publishers Nell was now one of the
shunned, drunken women whom Gissing describes in the book,
certainly not the heroine.
Thyrza is the beautiful petted younger sister of Lydia Trent
who along with Thyrza works as a hat trimmer but while Lyddie is
unimaginative and down to earth, Thyrza feels life must hold
something better. She wants to learn about books and foreign
travel and soon attracts the attention of older factory worker
Gilbert Grail. He is quite different to her would be suitor, Luke
Ackroyd, he also has an insatiable thirst for learning and he
soon becomes friends with Walter Ergemont, a wealthy young man
who is giving a series of lectures on literature at a working
men's institute. Ergemont sees Grail as his only success and
together they plan to open a free library in the heart of Lambeth.
The problem for me is that there is no one dynamic character in
the book and certainly no larger than life villain. Thyrza meets
Walter and soon becomes infatuated with him to the point that
she calls off her wedding to Gilbert. Her behaviour becomes the
talk of Lambeth and when she runs off at the same time that
Walter leaves for Paris locals put two and two together - even
though the two happenings are not connected!!
I found Thyrza spoiled and petted and not a really convincing
character. As in a lot of Gissing's books sometimes the minor
characters are far more interesting eg Totty Nancarrow, a street
hoyden has a lot more light and shade and a lot more personality
to like!!
By focusing on the good and decent working people Gissing hasn't
given Thyrza much spark!!
novel in him - this time he wanted to concentrate on working
girls and the way they were exploited. Gissing's novels are
grim and depressing because they mirror his own life. Like
Ergemont and Gilbert Grail, Gissing felt the way to elevate
workers and lower classes was through literature and books
(earlier in "Thyrza" Grail had sadly shook his head because
his two companions Bunce and Ackroyd had professed interest
only in scientific books).
Earlier in his life Gissing had married a young prostitute,
Nell Harrison, in order to teach and educate her but by the time
"Thyrza" was being sent to the publishers Nell was now one of the
shunned, drunken women whom Gissing describes in the book,
certainly not the heroine.
Thyrza is the beautiful petted younger sister of Lydia Trent
who along with Thyrza works as a hat trimmer but while Lyddie is
unimaginative and down to earth, Thyrza feels life must hold
something better. She wants to learn about books and foreign
travel and soon attracts the attention of older factory worker
Gilbert Grail. He is quite different to her would be suitor, Luke
Ackroyd, he also has an insatiable thirst for learning and he
soon becomes friends with Walter Ergemont, a wealthy young man
who is giving a series of lectures on literature at a working
men's institute. Ergemont sees Grail as his only success and
together they plan to open a free library in the heart of Lambeth.
The problem for me is that there is no one dynamic character in
the book and certainly no larger than life villain. Thyrza meets
Walter and soon becomes infatuated with him to the point that
she calls off her wedding to Gilbert. Her behaviour becomes the
talk of Lambeth and when she runs off at the same time that
Walter leaves for Paris locals put two and two together - even
though the two happenings are not connected!!
I found Thyrza spoiled and petted and not a really convincing
character. As in a lot of Gissing's books sometimes the minor
characters are far more interesting eg Totty Nancarrow, a street
hoyden has a lot more light and shade and a lot more personality
to like!!
By focusing on the good and decent working people Gissing hasn't
given Thyrza much spark!!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 8, 2020
*2.75 stars. My least favorite Gissing. I probably shouldn't have finished it, so tedious did I find certain sections, but I have a hard time abandoning a book. There were some good scenes and minor characters--as well as the quotations listed below. The problem: the titular character. I found her far from interesting.
"...sun-smitten lake..." (3).
“For a wonder, there was no fog tonight, but the street lights glistened on wet pavements, and vehicles as they rattled along sent mud-volleys to either side” (60).
“He had a bad cold, poor old man, and for the moment it made him look as if he indulged too freely in ardent beverages…” (60).
"Mr. Barlow again cleared his throat, looking about the floor as if he were in the habit of living near a spittoon" (228).
"...sun-smitten lake..." (3).
“For a wonder, there was no fog tonight, but the street lights glistened on wet pavements, and vehicles as they rattled along sent mud-volleys to either side” (60).
“He had a bad cold, poor old man, and for the moment it made him look as if he indulged too freely in ardent beverages…” (60).
"Mr. Barlow again cleared his throat, looking about the floor as if he were in the habit of living near a spittoon" (228).
February 26, 2024
George Gissing’s ‘Thyrza’ so defies criticism that it is amazing that it remains all but forgotten today. Here is Gissing at his best, in the issues so dear to him: social inequalities and class differences, mismatched couples, great love and shallow infatuation, the quality of education, the follies and dangers of dilettantism, and the kind of political ambition which has the single goal of self interest. Other matters dealt with in some detail in his other novels are just touched upon in passing here, such as religion and the grinding poverty of the urban working class family.
This particular novel is more Victorian than, for instance, ‘The Charlatan’ or ‘New Grub Street’, because of the assumed right of one class of people to look down on the men and women in their employ, to dictate their cultural tastes in music and literature, to censure their religious beliefs, and deny them the ordinary pleasures of conviviality. To assume, in other words, that they are superior by the possession of wealth, either earned or inherited.
Thus, one of the main themes of ‘Thyrza’ is the danger posed by a vague idealism and fuzzy goodwill without an underlying pragmatism. Walter Egremont, the protagonist, is often called the idealist, but in this book there are as many as four idealists, all doomed, it seems, to different kinds of disillusionment. Egremont's bright idea is to give a series of free lectures to working men on a classical diet of literature, history and something he calls “Thoughts for the Present.” When his antithesis, Mr. James Dalmaine, a rising politician, asks him about the political principles included in his lectures, Egremont's lofty response is that he would have no political discussions in his classes, and even abolish newspapers if he could. He learns his mistake when it is too late.
But misplaced idealism is not the only, or even the main, issue at work: the other theme is love, but love is another vague word for a life-consuming passion - or is it infatuation? There is Gilbert's stolid love for a golden girl, Ackroyd’s crush on a pretty face, and Egremont's besottedness over Thyrza; there is Totty Nancarrow’s silent devotion to a widower and his children; Lydia’s unselfish sacrifice of herself and her love for Luke Ackroyd in the interests of her sister; the heartbreaking silence of a girl who sees the man she loves dazzled by another girl younger and better looking than herself; and then there is the fashionable mesalliance of a bully with brains to a nincompoop with looks. They are all thrown into a pot and given a vigorous shake, and lo! what comes out forms the plot.
Insofar as Thyrza is concerned, her emotions simply dwarf the girl, whose personality thereafter degenerates into indecision, self-pity and illness. That she loves Egremont with a surpassing love, there can be no doubt. Equally, she lacks the strength of character to handle it, as for instance, Annabel Newthorpe or even flighty Miss Paula Tyrrell who marries someone exactly opposite to Egremont to get even with Mr Egremont for failing to pay homage to her. Thyrza redeems herself only when she finds the courage to go to Gilbert Grail and ask him to take her back.
Egremont's ardour, on the other hand, is a “perishable love.” Although he loves Thyrza, or thinks he does, after an absence of two years in an oil-cloth mill in the United States, he finds that
“His passion for Thyrza was dead; he even wondered how it could ever have been so violent. It seemed to him that he scarcely knew her; could he not count on his fingers the number of times that he had seen her? So much had intervened between him and her, between himself as he was thenand his present self. It was with apprehension that he thought of marrying her. He knew what miseries had again and again resulted from marriages such as this, and he feared for her quite as much as for himself. For there was no more passion.”
Since Gissing's plots are character-driven, it is a given that his characters are strong and impressive. Here, however, the peripheral and minor persons in the drama are as interesting, if not more, than the principals. They are none of them minor actors, in the sense that they are not stopgaps, comic relief, or part of a parallel subplot. They pale before the drama enacted before their eyes, but they are all sturdy, determined folk who shape well out of their faults and limitations, and grow out of their chrysalises to direct the course of events and determine the outcome of the story. Particularly with men like Luke Ackroyd and Bunce, both of whom are going downhill in different ways, Gissing handles their rehabilitation so delicately that of all the men in the book, it is these two who remain as the strongest at the end. Gilbert Grail, one of the idealists, is like Adam. He is born perfect, and he can only be admired. Whereas men like Ackroyd and old Mr Newthorpe long to kick Egremont downstairs or thrash him, Gilbert forgives him. As for the women, there is no Gissing novel yet with a colourless female part. Weak they may be; negative they often are; but absent they are not. Human malice and mischief plays a special role, both in the working class world and the fashionable West End of London.
George Gissing greatly admired Dickens’s social conscience, although no two novelists were farther apart in style and treatment of almost the same subjects. “He retains a small but devoted group of followers,” says the Wikipedia article on Gissing, and it seems to be undeniable that if George Gissing is largely ignored by most readers, those who by accident fall under his spell remain utterly loyal to him.
This particular novel is more Victorian than, for instance, ‘The Charlatan’ or ‘New Grub Street’, because of the assumed right of one class of people to look down on the men and women in their employ, to dictate their cultural tastes in music and literature, to censure their religious beliefs, and deny them the ordinary pleasures of conviviality. To assume, in other words, that they are superior by the possession of wealth, either earned or inherited.
Thus, one of the main themes of ‘Thyrza’ is the danger posed by a vague idealism and fuzzy goodwill without an underlying pragmatism. Walter Egremont, the protagonist, is often called the idealist, but in this book there are as many as four idealists, all doomed, it seems, to different kinds of disillusionment. Egremont's bright idea is to give a series of free lectures to working men on a classical diet of literature, history and something he calls “Thoughts for the Present.” When his antithesis, Mr. James Dalmaine, a rising politician, asks him about the political principles included in his lectures, Egremont's lofty response is that he would have no political discussions in his classes, and even abolish newspapers if he could. He learns his mistake when it is too late.
But misplaced idealism is not the only, or even the main, issue at work: the other theme is love, but love is another vague word for a life-consuming passion - or is it infatuation? There is Gilbert's stolid love for a golden girl, Ackroyd’s crush on a pretty face, and Egremont's besottedness over Thyrza; there is Totty Nancarrow’s silent devotion to a widower and his children; Lydia’s unselfish sacrifice of herself and her love for Luke Ackroyd in the interests of her sister; the heartbreaking silence of a girl who sees the man she loves dazzled by another girl younger and better looking than herself; and then there is the fashionable mesalliance of a bully with brains to a nincompoop with looks. They are all thrown into a pot and given a vigorous shake, and lo! what comes out forms the plot.
Insofar as Thyrza is concerned, her emotions simply dwarf the girl, whose personality thereafter degenerates into indecision, self-pity and illness. That she loves Egremont with a surpassing love, there can be no doubt. Equally, she lacks the strength of character to handle it, as for instance, Annabel Newthorpe or even flighty Miss Paula Tyrrell who marries someone exactly opposite to Egremont to get even with Mr Egremont for failing to pay homage to her. Thyrza redeems herself only when she finds the courage to go to Gilbert Grail and ask him to take her back.
Egremont's ardour, on the other hand, is a “perishable love.” Although he loves Thyrza, or thinks he does, after an absence of two years in an oil-cloth mill in the United States, he finds that
“His passion for Thyrza was dead; he even wondered how it could ever have been so violent. It seemed to him that he scarcely knew her; could he not count on his fingers the number of times that he had seen her? So much had intervened between him and her, between himself as he was thenand his present self. It was with apprehension that he thought of marrying her. He knew what miseries had again and again resulted from marriages such as this, and he feared for her quite as much as for himself. For there was no more passion.”
Since Gissing's plots are character-driven, it is a given that his characters are strong and impressive. Here, however, the peripheral and minor persons in the drama are as interesting, if not more, than the principals. They are none of them minor actors, in the sense that they are not stopgaps, comic relief, or part of a parallel subplot. They pale before the drama enacted before their eyes, but they are all sturdy, determined folk who shape well out of their faults and limitations, and grow out of their chrysalises to direct the course of events and determine the outcome of the story. Particularly with men like Luke Ackroyd and Bunce, both of whom are going downhill in different ways, Gissing handles their rehabilitation so delicately that of all the men in the book, it is these two who remain as the strongest at the end. Gilbert Grail, one of the idealists, is like Adam. He is born perfect, and he can only be admired. Whereas men like Ackroyd and old Mr Newthorpe long to kick Egremont downstairs or thrash him, Gilbert forgives him. As for the women, there is no Gissing novel yet with a colourless female part. Weak they may be; negative they often are; but absent they are not. Human malice and mischief plays a special role, both in the working class world and the fashionable West End of London.
George Gissing greatly admired Dickens’s social conscience, although no two novelists were farther apart in style and treatment of almost the same subjects. “He retains a small but devoted group of followers,” says the Wikipedia article on Gissing, and it seems to be undeniable that if George Gissing is largely ignored by most readers, those who by accident fall under his spell remain utterly loyal to him.
December 28, 2023
I have just completed reading ‘Thryza’ by George Gissing, alongside Hardy’s ‘first’ novel, ‘Desperate Remedies.’ It is also one of Gissing’s early works and it is interesting to compare the two authors’ prose styles. Both are classed as ‘realist’ novelists and they were near contemporaries as well as literary friends. Although considerably less poetic in style than Hardy, Gissing’s precise and emotive descriptions of character and place wrap you up in a world he creates so tightly that you seem to be there in the rooms/locations with the characters. Well, that’s what it felt like to me.
Gissing’s novel has certainly left its mark on me, particularly his depiction of the lower classes of Victorian society. His descriptions of their everyday lives seem to have a greater authenticity than most novelists of the time. I have read more of Gissing’s work, which, like Hardy’s is often dark, but I found that ‘Thyrza’ helped me to visualise with such clarity the yawning gulf between the haves and the have nots of Victorian society. The novel is adept in revealing the torments and struggles of those born into poverty, particularly those blessed with intelligence and/or artistic temperaments.
Gissing’s novel has certainly left its mark on me, particularly his depiction of the lower classes of Victorian society. His descriptions of their everyday lives seem to have a greater authenticity than most novelists of the time. I have read more of Gissing’s work, which, like Hardy’s is often dark, but I found that ‘Thyrza’ helped me to visualise with such clarity the yawning gulf between the haves and the have nots of Victorian society. The novel is adept in revealing the torments and struggles of those born into poverty, particularly those blessed with intelligence and/or artistic temperaments.
August 2, 2024
A central theme is the self improvement of the working classes and in this, the novel reminded me of Robert Tressell`s The Ragged trousered Philanthropists where a man of vision attempts to encourage a group of working men through philosophical endeavour. This is a theme to which George Gissing returns frequently. In his novel Demos, a working class man who inherits a fortune attempts to set up a philanthropic community. Tressell`s book, for me, is more revealing of the struggles faced by those attempting such a social movement as this, and the renown enjoyed by this novel is deserved. Inequality is deep-set. Persuading those in the lower strata of society to want to improve their lot, (wanting to being key), is a complex task and brings issues such as inheritance and the barriers to social mobility to the fore. Robert Tressell`s book is remarkable because he manages to portray the deep seated reluctance of many people to change their lives. This doubtless plays into the hands of the privileged who are content to perpetuate the status quo. I am reminded of Paulo Freire`s book Pedagogy of the Oppressed which is of Latin American origin, but the forces at play will naturally be comparable to those elsewhere.
January 4, 2016
Thyrza
by George Gissing
by George Gissing
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