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Demos: A Story of English Socialism
This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.
322 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1886
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About the author
George Gissing
392 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 10, 2025
A New Edition Of Gissing's Demos
It is an event when a new edition of a rare novel of the late Victorian writer George Gissing (1857 -- 1903) becomes available. "Demos" was Gissing's third novel and was first published anonymously in 1886. It is one of a series of Gissing's early novels that deal with the lives of the London poor. As its subtitle, "A Story of English Socialism" suggests, "Demos" has an overtly political theme. The novel appeared and drew much attention during a period of substantial socialist agitation in England, including the Haymarket riots of 1886. This new edition of "Demos" is published by a small press, Victorian Secrets Ltd., which has the goal of making accessible unjustly forgotten works of Victorian fiction. Victorian Secrets earlier published Gissing's first novel, "Workers in the Dawn" and has followed it with this important work. Debbie Harrison, an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of London, has edited the volume together with an Introduction, background notes, and an Appendix summarizing "The Politics of Demos". The preeminent Gissing scholar Pierre Coustillas has written a Preface to the volume. "Demos" is the only novel of Gissing that was made into a movie. Titled "Why Men Forget" in its 1921 American release, the film featured Milton Rosner and Evelyn Brent in the two leading roles. The movie has become as obscure as the novel on which it is based and does not appear to be available on DVD.
The unthinking, irrational mob, personified in the title "Demos" is the main character in the novel. Gissing deeply distrusted the mob together with democracy in general. George Orwell offered a more particularized description of the novel's subject. He wrote that the book told "a story of the moral and intellectual corruption of a working-class Socialist who inherits a fortune." The novel moves in its setting between the London slums and a fictitious village called Wanley, located in a peaceful rural setting. Wanley is about to become the site for extensive mining and manufacturing operations which will destroy its idyllic character while providing jobs to many workers.
The main individual character in the novel is Richard Mutimer, a worker who is an active speaker in the Socialist movement. When a distant relative, also named Mutimer, dies apparently without a will, Richard Mutimer appears to inherit his entire extensive estate which centers on Wanley and the mineral resources that the elder Mutimer had just begun to exploit. When he learns of his windfall, Mutimer decides to continue the mining and manufacturing at what he calls New Wanley. He proposes to turn the project into a model socialist community run for the benefit of the workers. Mutimer's elderly mother is skeptical about the project from the beginning. She does not want to leave her poor rooms or her children. In addition to Richard the family includes a daughter, Alice, known aptly as the "Princess" and a young son, Harry or 'Arry who shows all the makings of a wastrel.
Richard has been engaged to a poor working girl, Emma Vine, who adores him. With his new fortune and project, Richard callously jettisons Emma in favor of a girl from a middle-class family which has fallen upon hard times. At the urging of her mother and brother Alfred, Adela Waltham reluctantly agrees to marry Richard Mutimer. She tries to be a dutiful wife but can find no love for Richard. As the story continues, Adela comes to detest her husband before a measure of reconciliation towards the end.
As Richard Mutimer proceeds with the faltering New Wanley, Adela finds that old Mutimer died leaving a will after all. Richard Mutimer wants to destroy the hidden will, but Adela insists on honoring it. With a visit to the Solicitor, all the property reverts to one Hubert Eldon, 22, a protege of old Mutimer. Hubert and Adela had been romantically involved but Adela's mother stopped the relationship due to Hubert's apparent impoverishment and some unseemly behavior. The story has a long, tragic denouement as Richard Mutimer tries to regain his position in the Socialist movement together with a semblance of affection from Adela.
In scenes of public meetings and London streets, "Demos" offers a portrayal of the life of the London poor. The Socialist movement, in its many factions also receives detailed description. The figures of the movement range from workers such as Mutimer to intellectualized and removed upper-middle class supporters, to radicals who aim to destroy the social order, to communists. Many of the characters in "Demos", particularly Richard Mutimer, his mother. Adela, and a curate in Wanley named Wyvern who appears to be the closest character to Gissing's own understanding of his story, are well-presented. The novel is difficult because of its length and depth and because of Gissing's own ambivalence towards his subject matter. The writing is uneven and includes long, tangled subplots. Gissing has sympathy with the lives of the urban poor and shares their criticism of unfettered capitalism. The dominant tone of the book is pessimistic as Gissing rejects Socialism and denies that class distinctions between people can be forcefully overcome during a short period of time.
"Demos" includes many striking individual passages, including its portrayal of Richard Mutimer's hands (shown on the cover of the book), Adela's realization during a train ride to London of her feelings toward her husband, and many of the reflections of Wyvern on modernity, the poor, and the developing class of restless, educated individuals with little to do and less in in the way of thought or commitment. The most famous scene in "Demos" occurs after the death of Emma Vine's sister, Jane. Gissing describes the desolate scene at the Manor Park Cemetery upon Jane's burial (p 233):
"Here on the waste limits of that dread East, to wander among tombs is to go hand in hand with the stark and eyeless emblem of mortality; the spirit fails beneath the cold burden of ignoble destiny. Here lie those who were born for toil; who, when toil has worn them to the uttermost, have but to yield their useless breath and pass into oblivion. For them is no day, only the brief twilight of a winter sky between the former and the latter night. For them no aspiration; for them no hope of memory in the dust; their very children are wearied into forgetfulness. Indistinguishable units in the vast throng that labours but to support life, the name of each father, mother, child, is as a dumb cry for the warmth and love of which Fate so stinted them. The wind wails above their narrow tenements; the sandy soil, soaking in the rain as soon as it has fallen, is a symbol of the great world which absorbs their toil and straight-away blots their being."
A complex, passionate book written on the whole in a gray style, "Demos" is not for every reader. The book remains rewarding and deserves to be remembered. Victorian Secrets Ltd. has done a great service in making the novel available in this excellent new edition.
Robin Friedman
It is an event when a new edition of a rare novel of the late Victorian writer George Gissing (1857 -- 1903) becomes available. "Demos" was Gissing's third novel and was first published anonymously in 1886. It is one of a series of Gissing's early novels that deal with the lives of the London poor. As its subtitle, "A Story of English Socialism" suggests, "Demos" has an overtly political theme. The novel appeared and drew much attention during a period of substantial socialist agitation in England, including the Haymarket riots of 1886. This new edition of "Demos" is published by a small press, Victorian Secrets Ltd., which has the goal of making accessible unjustly forgotten works of Victorian fiction. Victorian Secrets earlier published Gissing's first novel, "Workers in the Dawn" and has followed it with this important work. Debbie Harrison, an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of London, has edited the volume together with an Introduction, background notes, and an Appendix summarizing "The Politics of Demos". The preeminent Gissing scholar Pierre Coustillas has written a Preface to the volume. "Demos" is the only novel of Gissing that was made into a movie. Titled "Why Men Forget" in its 1921 American release, the film featured Milton Rosner and Evelyn Brent in the two leading roles. The movie has become as obscure as the novel on which it is based and does not appear to be available on DVD.
The unthinking, irrational mob, personified in the title "Demos" is the main character in the novel. Gissing deeply distrusted the mob together with democracy in general. George Orwell offered a more particularized description of the novel's subject. He wrote that the book told "a story of the moral and intellectual corruption of a working-class Socialist who inherits a fortune." The novel moves in its setting between the London slums and a fictitious village called Wanley, located in a peaceful rural setting. Wanley is about to become the site for extensive mining and manufacturing operations which will destroy its idyllic character while providing jobs to many workers.
The main individual character in the novel is Richard Mutimer, a worker who is an active speaker in the Socialist movement. When a distant relative, also named Mutimer, dies apparently without a will, Richard Mutimer appears to inherit his entire extensive estate which centers on Wanley and the mineral resources that the elder Mutimer had just begun to exploit. When he learns of his windfall, Mutimer decides to continue the mining and manufacturing at what he calls New Wanley. He proposes to turn the project into a model socialist community run for the benefit of the workers. Mutimer's elderly mother is skeptical about the project from the beginning. She does not want to leave her poor rooms or her children. In addition to Richard the family includes a daughter, Alice, known aptly as the "Princess" and a young son, Harry or 'Arry who shows all the makings of a wastrel.
Richard has been engaged to a poor working girl, Emma Vine, who adores him. With his new fortune and project, Richard callously jettisons Emma in favor of a girl from a middle-class family which has fallen upon hard times. At the urging of her mother and brother Alfred, Adela Waltham reluctantly agrees to marry Richard Mutimer. She tries to be a dutiful wife but can find no love for Richard. As the story continues, Adela comes to detest her husband before a measure of reconciliation towards the end.
As Richard Mutimer proceeds with the faltering New Wanley, Adela finds that old Mutimer died leaving a will after all. Richard Mutimer wants to destroy the hidden will, but Adela insists on honoring it. With a visit to the Solicitor, all the property reverts to one Hubert Eldon, 22, a protege of old Mutimer. Hubert and Adela had been romantically involved but Adela's mother stopped the relationship due to Hubert's apparent impoverishment and some unseemly behavior. The story has a long, tragic denouement as Richard Mutimer tries to regain his position in the Socialist movement together with a semblance of affection from Adela.
In scenes of public meetings and London streets, "Demos" offers a portrayal of the life of the London poor. The Socialist movement, in its many factions also receives detailed description. The figures of the movement range from workers such as Mutimer to intellectualized and removed upper-middle class supporters, to radicals who aim to destroy the social order, to communists. Many of the characters in "Demos", particularly Richard Mutimer, his mother. Adela, and a curate in Wanley named Wyvern who appears to be the closest character to Gissing's own understanding of his story, are well-presented. The novel is difficult because of its length and depth and because of Gissing's own ambivalence towards his subject matter. The writing is uneven and includes long, tangled subplots. Gissing has sympathy with the lives of the urban poor and shares their criticism of unfettered capitalism. The dominant tone of the book is pessimistic as Gissing rejects Socialism and denies that class distinctions between people can be forcefully overcome during a short period of time.
"Demos" includes many striking individual passages, including its portrayal of Richard Mutimer's hands (shown on the cover of the book), Adela's realization during a train ride to London of her feelings toward her husband, and many of the reflections of Wyvern on modernity, the poor, and the developing class of restless, educated individuals with little to do and less in in the way of thought or commitment. The most famous scene in "Demos" occurs after the death of Emma Vine's sister, Jane. Gissing describes the desolate scene at the Manor Park Cemetery upon Jane's burial (p 233):
"Here on the waste limits of that dread East, to wander among tombs is to go hand in hand with the stark and eyeless emblem of mortality; the spirit fails beneath the cold burden of ignoble destiny. Here lie those who were born for toil; who, when toil has worn them to the uttermost, have but to yield their useless breath and pass into oblivion. For them is no day, only the brief twilight of a winter sky between the former and the latter night. For them no aspiration; for them no hope of memory in the dust; their very children are wearied into forgetfulness. Indistinguishable units in the vast throng that labours but to support life, the name of each father, mother, child, is as a dumb cry for the warmth and love of which Fate so stinted them. The wind wails above their narrow tenements; the sandy soil, soaking in the rain as soon as it has fallen, is a symbol of the great world which absorbs their toil and straight-away blots their being."
A complex, passionate book written on the whole in a gray style, "Demos" is not for every reader. The book remains rewarding and deserves to be remembered. Victorian Secrets Ltd. has done a great service in making the novel available in this excellent new edition.
Robin Friedman
January 23, 2015
It’s been a while since I read any George Gissing, but I remember ‘New Grub Street’, ‘The Odd Women’ and ‘The Nether World’ as standing tall at the more modern end of Victorian fiction. They’re books which aren’t as staid as some of their contemporaries, nor as cloying as some of their contemporaries. Reading ‘Demos’ therefore was something of a shock, as here we have a novel which has that traditional Victorian feel from first page to last. It’s frequently staid, sometimes cloying, throws its lot in heavily for coincidence and melodrama (dramatic incidents with wills occur not once, but twice) and is incredibly fond of speechifying. If ever a character wants to express his views, he (or occasionally she, but mostly he) will do so at voluble and often interminable length. Generally it feels like something a Dickens wannabe might march into print. Now I love Charles Dickens dearly, but reading faux Dickens originally published a full twenty five years after the man’s death is never going to be in my top ten most enjoyable experiences. Particularly as I know that this writer was elsewhere trying to drag the novel forward.
The plot is a spin on some of the themes of ‘Little Dorrit’: poor man receives a large sum of money and it ruins him. But the subtitle to the book is ‘A Story of English Socialism’, so maybe the plot was subservient to Gissing expressing his views on socialism. But even that charitable reading runs into the problem that the opinions expressed on socialism are so manifest that as a philosophical tract it’s decidedly muddy. Gissing manages the curious trick of sneering at the middle class socialists, while patronising the working class socialists. As far as I can (and after another reading, I might decide this opinion was wrong [but then I might do that again after a third reading]) the book’s position is that the working classes are in dire straits, but aren’t able to help themselves, so they need the middle class but the middle class don’t really understand them and so can’t help them properly. It really is something of a muddle and definitely isn’t a novel for the creed hungry reader to latch onto. Perhaps, maybe though, that’s Gissing’s intention. Maybe he didn’t want to offer easy answers. As in the character of the vicar, Mr Wyvern, a youthful socialist who now looks at the whole movement with a jaundiced eye we have closest to the beating heart of the book. But even then, titling the novel: ‘A Story of English Socialism’ and then sneering at the whole thing, does seem a bit of a cop out.
Richard Mutimer, the young man who inherits the fortune and tries to put it to a social good, and his wife, Adela, are really the only fully-formed characters we have on the page. The rest just circle around them in various degrees of charcoal sketch. Part of that is that is the speechifying, wherein characters are more prone to just state their aims, desires and beliefs at boring length, rather than show who they are though their actions. But the larger part is the hackneyed story and the melodramatic whims of the plot, which must have felt somewhat dated in 1895.
However there’s one aspect of the book which feels much more modern, daring and transgressive: Adela’s relationship with her older friend Stella Westlake. Stella awakens Adela one morning with a kiss on the lips, a kiss that excites such passions in Adela that it resonates for weeks afterwards. Not even other subsequent kisses (and there appear to be many subsequent kisses) erase the memory of that first one. Adela invests all her passion and trust in Stella, seems obsessed with her, to the point where when feeling distressed, Adela asks Stella to help her take off all her clothes and lie next to her all night. Now obviously I’m reading this in the much more highly sexualised Twenty-First century, but even a Victorian reader must have recognised the language of love and passion here. That Gissing is hinting at a lot more than girlish friendship here, and possibly writing that rare thing – a respectable Victorian novel with a lesbian love affair in the middle of it. At points of reading it I had to loosen my corset and dab a tissue to my brow I was so over-whelmed. It’s truly interesting that Adela only tires of Stella when
That’s the one part of ‘Demos: A Story of English Socialism’ which makes it feel modern, raising it above the normal Victorian pot-boiler with a social conscience, and shows the way to Twentieth century fiction through Victorian grime covered streets.
The plot is a spin on some of the themes of ‘Little Dorrit’: poor man receives a large sum of money and it ruins him. But the subtitle to the book is ‘A Story of English Socialism’, so maybe the plot was subservient to Gissing expressing his views on socialism. But even that charitable reading runs into the problem that the opinions expressed on socialism are so manifest that as a philosophical tract it’s decidedly muddy. Gissing manages the curious trick of sneering at the middle class socialists, while patronising the working class socialists. As far as I can (and after another reading, I might decide this opinion was wrong [but then I might do that again after a third reading]) the book’s position is that the working classes are in dire straits, but aren’t able to help themselves, so they need the middle class but the middle class don’t really understand them and so can’t help them properly. It really is something of a muddle and definitely isn’t a novel for the creed hungry reader to latch onto. Perhaps, maybe though, that’s Gissing’s intention. Maybe he didn’t want to offer easy answers. As in the character of the vicar, Mr Wyvern, a youthful socialist who now looks at the whole movement with a jaundiced eye we have closest to the beating heart of the book. But even then, titling the novel: ‘A Story of English Socialism’ and then sneering at the whole thing, does seem a bit of a cop out.
Richard Mutimer, the young man who inherits the fortune and tries to put it to a social good, and his wife, Adela, are really the only fully-formed characters we have on the page. The rest just circle around them in various degrees of charcoal sketch. Part of that is that is the speechifying, wherein characters are more prone to just state their aims, desires and beliefs at boring length, rather than show who they are though their actions. But the larger part is the hackneyed story and the melodramatic whims of the plot, which must have felt somewhat dated in 1895.
However there’s one aspect of the book which feels much more modern, daring and transgressive: Adela’s relationship with her older friend Stella Westlake. Stella awakens Adela one morning with a kiss on the lips, a kiss that excites such passions in Adela that it resonates for weeks afterwards. Not even other subsequent kisses (and there appear to be many subsequent kisses) erase the memory of that first one. Adela invests all her passion and trust in Stella, seems obsessed with her, to the point where when feeling distressed, Adela asks Stella to help her take off all her clothes and lie next to her all night. Now obviously I’m reading this in the much more highly sexualised Twenty-First century, but even a Victorian reader must have recognised the language of love and passion here. That Gissing is hinting at a lot more than girlish friendship here, and possibly writing that rare thing – a respectable Victorian novel with a lesbian love affair in the middle of it. At points of reading it I had to loosen my corset and dab a tissue to my brow I was so over-whelmed. It’s truly interesting that Adela only tires of Stella when
That’s the one part of ‘Demos: A Story of English Socialism’ which makes it feel modern, raising it above the normal Victorian pot-boiler with a social conscience, and shows the way to Twentieth century fiction through Victorian grime covered streets.
December 26, 2023
‘Demos’, one of Gissing's earlier works, marks the fruition of the man into the novelist. True to Gissing's ideas at the time, the novel is an exposition of socialist idealism, which fails as soon as the ideal socialist becomes a capitalist. Richard Mutimer, a working class man, newly unemployed because his political and economic views are unacceptable to his employers, faces a bleak future where he will remain unemployable so long as views are radical. Just at the moment when things look very black, he comes into possession of a large estate, dispossessing the man until then the heir-presumptive, Hubert Eldon, as well as marrying the woman with whom Eldon was in love.
Mutimer is a very complex character, unlike his counterpart, Hubert Eldon. To start with, he is a very strong man intellectually, who is utterly convinced that socialism is the only way to better the lives of the working class. He is kindly and generous to his friends and deeply attached to his family, for whom he has assumed a kind of paternal authority. He is engaged to Emma, a girl of his own class, who loves him, but who cannot as yet abandon a family that is almost completely dependent on her. He is industrious and sober. His defects lie in part in his education - he does not see the need for information not directly pertaining to either socialism or labour. All cultural refinements he rejects as an adjunct of the entitled classes. Similarly, he rejects official religion on the grounds that people must first be fed, housed and given rest before they can think of religion. On the other hand, if religion means the brotherhood of men and women working and living together in harmony and with freedom from slave labour, disease and want, then he practises it daily and has no need to make a show of it in a special building.
Mutimer determines to use his new-found wealth for the common good, and starts well, but with the sudden access of wealth and property, one by one his principles fall by the way as they clash with newly discovered social ambitions. His lack of refinement make him self-conscious, while as an employer (though he insists he is not an employer in a co-operative), he is overbearing and harsh. He is ashamed of his working class friends, and drops them effortlessly. His mother and his brother both assert their independence in their own remarkable ways. His greatest act of blackguardism, however, comes when he uses his sister to inform Emma that he is already married. This is almost true, for he has acted on Mrs Waltham, a widow without money, to marry her daughter Adela. He admires their ‘class’, and Mrs Waltham admires his money. Adela does not love him, but when scurrilous tales are printed about the man she does love, she accepts Mutimer’s offer.
Mutimer's socialist dreams fade, his once-brash personality now call for a moderate approach to his political views, while the radical elements of his party force a schism within the movement, vilifying his moral turpitude with the story of his jilting of Emma, and calling for assassination as the only means of achieving their aims. Mutimer's parliamentary dreams come crashing down in face of the existing Socialist candidate and conservative interests.
The ending is weak, but in a way inevitable. Mutimer's younger brother ‘Arry has been ruined irredeemably by prosperity, but before his final disappearance, ‘Arry has found out that his sister has been married to a bigamist, and is ultimately the instrument by which the bigamist is convicted, for financial fraud as well as bigamy. Mutimer's own death at the hands of angry rioters is sudden and unsatisfactory, but it leaves his family free to move out of his shadow.
The novel’s greatest strength is in the personalities of the Mutimer family, and in that of Adela Mutimer. While she does not love her husband, her inbred pride in herself impels her to support him in all his plans, repressing her own preferences. It does not make her very pleasant, and there is a reason why both Mutimer's mother and his sister detest her. The weakness in ‘Demos’ seems to be that it equates the working class with ignorance and vulgarity, and civilisational and cultural attainments the exclusive prerogative of the propertied class. This is not always the case, as the Vicar points out, but the animosity between Hubert Eldon and Richard Mutimer lies deeper than rivalry over a woman or dispossession of ancestral property. The novel also suggests that when the labouring man comes suddenly into money, the inner man shows up as a vulgar, crass parvenu.
May 24, 2020
The book gives vivid pictures of the working and gentry classes and a certain version of socialist movement, with quite some engaging psychological passages. The hero has multiple facets in his personality which undergoes change over time. He and some other characters all internally struggle and make mistakes. The story has an interesting plot and mixed ending. The style of the writing is just suitable for an audio book, which I listened to.
I like all aspects of the novel, except for the passages of the narrator's analyses of the characters, inserted now and then in the story, which attempt to substitute for the otherwise desirable imagery, and deprive the reader of the enjoyment of having their own interpretations.
I like all aspects of the novel, except for the passages of the narrator's analyses of the characters, inserted now and then in the story, which attempt to substitute for the otherwise desirable imagery, and deprive the reader of the enjoyment of having their own interpretations.
January 27, 2014
Gissing explores class distinctions in this 1886 book in which a London mechanic, Richard Mutimer accidentally inherits a fortune.
He is a step above what we might think of working class men and is a social revolutionist, trying his best to aid his own class of the working poor. His attempts to form an iron works in a Midlands countryside is just getting off the ground when fate turns another face to him.
How the inherited wealth affects him and those around him is a large part of the story played on the larger stage of the mid-1880's social unrest in England.
Despite a rather stuffy title, the book is not at all boring as his characters carry the theme and philosophies of the time.
Quotes:
"Her life had undergone that impoverishment which is so dangers to elementary natures,the loss of an ideal."
"The noise of the vehicle did not favour conversation, Daniel waited till Kate got out, then he too descended and walked along by her side. He did not offer to relieve her of the bundle - in primitive societies woman is naturally the burden-bearer.
"I wouldn't a' thought it o' Dick," he said, his head thrust forward, and his eyes turning doggedly from side to side. "They say as how too much money ain't good for a man, but it's changed him past all knowin'."
He is a step above what we might think of working class men and is a social revolutionist, trying his best to aid his own class of the working poor. His attempts to form an iron works in a Midlands countryside is just getting off the ground when fate turns another face to him.
How the inherited wealth affects him and those around him is a large part of the story played on the larger stage of the mid-1880's social unrest in England.
Despite a rather stuffy title, the book is not at all boring as his characters carry the theme and philosophies of the time.
Quotes:
"Her life had undergone that impoverishment which is so dangers to elementary natures,the loss of an ideal."
"The noise of the vehicle did not favour conversation, Daniel waited till Kate got out, then he too descended and walked along by her side. He did not offer to relieve her of the bundle - in primitive societies woman is naturally the burden-bearer.
"I wouldn't a' thought it o' Dick," he said, his head thrust forward, and his eyes turning doggedly from side to side. "They say as how too much money ain't good for a man, but it's changed him past all knowin'."
April 6, 2024
”Demos” is my vote for ‘relatively undiscovered gem of Victorian literature”. This book strengthens my growing opinion that George Gissing is an amazing writer. Rea it and I’m sure you’ll agree
I think the subtitle of this book, which is “A Story of English Socialism” or, as in some editions, “The Story of Socialism”, is misleading. Thankfully, this novel is not about socialist concepts. It is about class relations - and that makes it all the more interesting.
“Demos” means “the common people” and sure enough that is where the book starts. We meet Richard Mulimer, a member of the working class, Socialist, likes to make speeches to the masses during his free time advocating Socialism and the revolution.
Then, out of the blue, a rich uncle dies and Muliner becomes the master of an estate. The book gives us a ringside seat of what happens to a working class guy and his family when they suddenly have the means usually available to the nobility.
I found this novel to be at all times an engrossing read and at certain times a spectacular one. Several times I found myself exclaiming over the plot twists and one time was fist-pumping with a big green. This book is as good as as Gissing’s New Grub Street, and I love New Grub Street
It is also the first book of Gissing that doesn’t prominently feature poverty since it focuses on the working classes as well as the genteel and noble classes. The focus here is on class relations.
This is also a good book to recommend to someone who is contemplating getting married for purposes other than love. It shows the folly of doing such a thing.
Gissing writes with flowing prose and, as usual, takes us into the minds of his characters. There is no Gissing book to date where I have highlighted so many quotable passages as I have in Demos.. The book is fairly long at five hundred pages but unlike with Workers in the Dawn, Gissing was able to hold my attention throughout. An excellent novel.
Find books that you might love in my book review site
I think the subtitle of this book, which is “A Story of English Socialism” or, as in some editions, “The Story of Socialism”, is misleading. Thankfully, this novel is not about socialist concepts. It is about class relations - and that makes it all the more interesting.
“Demos” means “the common people” and sure enough that is where the book starts. We meet Richard Mulimer, a member of the working class, Socialist, likes to make speeches to the masses during his free time advocating Socialism and the revolution.
Then, out of the blue, a rich uncle dies and Muliner becomes the master of an estate. The book gives us a ringside seat of what happens to a working class guy and his family when they suddenly have the means usually available to the nobility.
I found this novel to be at all times an engrossing read and at certain times a spectacular one. Several times I found myself exclaiming over the plot twists and one time was fist-pumping with a big green. This book is as good as as Gissing’s New Grub Street, and I love New Grub Street
It is also the first book of Gissing that doesn’t prominently feature poverty since it focuses on the working classes as well as the genteel and noble classes. The focus here is on class relations.
This is also a good book to recommend to someone who is contemplating getting married for purposes other than love. It shows the folly of doing such a thing.
Gissing writes with flowing prose and, as usual, takes us into the minds of his characters. There is no Gissing book to date where I have highlighted so many quotable passages as I have in Demos.. The book is fairly long at five hundred pages but unlike with Workers in the Dawn, Gissing was able to hold my attention throughout. An excellent novel.
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April 6, 2024
This novel revolves broadly around the class struggle in nineteenth century England. The cast of characters are representative of a wide spectrum of society, and here we also find some of the different guises of the socialist, depending on the individual claiming to be sympathetic with this political philosophy - from the begrudging underpaid worker, to the champagne socialist with ideals. The protagonist here is an unlikely addition to this melange of characters, a working class man who has inherited an estate due to unusual circumstances and makes it his task to create a working community based on socialist ideals. The subsequent failure of this project suggests Gissing`s skepticism when considering his own conception.
In the main, Gissing is ambivalent on the merits or otherwise of socialism. One of the characters, a priest, is of the view that happiness is not necessarily dependant on wealth, but that `you are just as likely to hear the sounds of frolicking and shouts of merriment coming from a slum than from a manor house, and that money brings with it its own problems.
This novel might be shelved alongside The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell, the intentions being to a point aligned. Though I think the latter a superior book.
In the main, Gissing is ambivalent on the merits or otherwise of socialism. One of the characters, a priest, is of the view that happiness is not necessarily dependant on wealth, but that `you are just as likely to hear the sounds of frolicking and shouts of merriment coming from a slum than from a manor house, and that money brings with it its own problems.
This novel might be shelved alongside The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell, the intentions being to a point aligned. Though I think the latter a superior book.
December 31, 2017
This is the third George Gissing novel I’ve read after New Grub Street and The Odd Women and apart from the weak romantic ending I enjoyed it very much. I came to it not long after reading the remarkable The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists with which it has the shared theme of the rise of Socialism against the established Conservative and Liberal politics of the day. Whilst I still prefer the latter, one of the best books I’ve ever read, I greatly enjoyed this novel. The characters are less like ciphers and appear correspondingly more real especially the two main persons of Richard and Adela Mutimer. Polemic does intrude into the narrative where it seems to me that the novelist favours the status quo, (the landed Tory gets to live and also gets the girl, the worker’s mine set up by Mutimer is eradicated as if it had never been), but there’s no denying the writer’s skill with plotting. The episode where Adela finds the lost will is especially gripping as is the description of the riot at the conclusion.
I’ve read that Gissing was a favourite of George Orwell’s and I’ll certainly continue reading his available novels where I can find them.
I’ve read that Gissing was a favourite of George Orwell’s and I’ll certainly continue reading his available novels where I can find them.
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