The Letters of George Gissing to Eduard Bertz, 1887-1903 (review)

36 PRINCE HEMPSEED (1923). A novel dedicated "To the Memory of My Beloved Friend, Marcel Proust, November 8, 1922," this volume records Richard's memories from babyhood to age 18. TONY (1924). A novel which presents "the self-portrait of Richard's younger brother, who had been excluded from the earlier volumes of the Kurt saga.., Begins at the time of Richard's first trip to America and ends in 1919. MYRTLE (1925). A novel, "structured as a dossier novel in nine parts," introdu a renewing love into the life of Richard, who has been married for twenty \ypArc: RICHARD, MYRTLE AND I (1926). A novel which fills some gaps in Richard's story "between the time of Elinor's starting her divorce action and Richard's completing his second novel." The newly edited version (1962) has been somewhat cut. CELESTE AND OTHER SKETCHES (1930). A collection of six stories and sketches first published in American magazines, 1920-1925. A TRUE STORY (1930). Contains, rearranged in the order of events in Kurt's life: PRINCE HEMPSEED, ELINOR COLHOUSE, RICHARD KURT, "Postscript" (the ninth memoir from MYRTLE). The version of RICHARD KURT here is much reduced. A revised edition of 1937 added THE OTHER SIDE and cut RICHARD KURT still further. A revised 1948 version includes all the earlier parts and a final version of RICHARD KURT and an Epilogue never before published. THE OTHER SIDE (1937). A novel which fits into the Kurt saga between PRINCE HEMPSEED and ELINOR C0LH0USE. Finally, Professor BoM should be commended for providing the carefully documented biographical sketch and the thoughtful critical essay, and the University of Pennsylvania Press deserves kudos for bringing Boll's essays and this version of the short novel into print. Perhaps an enterprising publisher of paperbacks may yet be encouraged to keep in print such a collection of the Kurt Saga as appears in the 1948 edition of A TRUE STORY. — H. E. G. Arthur C. Young, ed. THE LETTERS OF GEORGE GISSING TO EDUARD BERTZ, 1887-1903. New Brunswick: Rutgers U P, I96I. $6.00. George Gissing's name has always been clouded by pity. His fellow writers— notably H. G. VJeMs and Morley Roberts—seemed to patronize him; reviewers were perplexed by a strange fame that haunted his sad novels. Conjecture rather than fact often supplied the details of his biography, especially because his family allowed only a heavily censored edition of his correspondence to appear (THE LETTERS OF GEORGE GISSING TO MEMBERS OF HIS FAMILY, 1927). As a result, critical studies even today often begin with an apologetic defense of "poor Gissing." Not so Professor Arthur C. Young's edition of THE LETTERS OF GEORGE GISSING TO EDUARD BERTZ, I887-I903. This correspondence often breathes with a different 37 Gissing, a happy traveller, a confident critic, and a generous friend (imagine Gissing lending money to another writer who was out of funds), Gissing felt that he could confide in Bertz as in no other mortal: "I have no other correspondent to whose mind I address myself so freely, and with such confidence of being understood." Gissing yearned for conversations about literature. But, denied them by his two disastrous marriages, and too proud to invite other authors to visit him in the honor of his households, he resorted to letters as a substitute and thereby satisfied his need for conversations about his craft and art; "Most certainly there is no man living who has followed my work as you have, no one who understands it anything like as well. And I think I may say that no one else will ever take half the trouble that you have done to arrive at a just estimate of my literary personality." A Socialist, exiled from Germany and living briefly in London when Gissing returned from America, Eduard Bertz advertised in a newspaper for scholarly companionship. That was in December, I878, and Gissing replied immediately. The resulting friendship prospered even after Bertz returned to Germany a few years later. This volume of correspondence opens with Gissing's enthusiasm over his first visit to Italy ("But Italy, Italy! Think that I am really going to visit thither at last, a thing never...