THE TOWN TRAVELLER

GEORGE GISSING

METHUEN & CO. LTD., LONDON
1956

First published in 1898.
George Gissing, best known as the author of the semi-autobiographical PRIVATE PAPERS OF HENRY RYEGROFT, wrote a number of other novels which have been too long neglected. In these tragic and often bitter stories he campaigned with Dickensian fervour ' against the social conditions of London in the nineties, writing, like his great predecessor, about the down-and-outs and the shabby-genteel among whom he lived for most of his unhappy life. But in THE TOWN TRAVELLER Gissing is for once light-hearted and without a social purpose. It is the story of Mr. Gammon, a friendly and jovial commercial traveller, who becomes involved in the mystery of the missing Mr. Clover. Polly Sparkes, a spirited young woman who is not above a bit of supper after the theatre, helps him in his search, which leads him to the house of Lord Polperro and to a series of rendezvous with a shady customer known as Greenacre. She also leads him into a position which the gentlemanly Mr. Gammon finds extremely delicate. Luck and audacity, however, propel him finally into the comforts of matrimony and the pleasures of a 'permanency' with Quodlings', oil and colourmen. The adventures of this delightful hero are neither violent nor dangerous; rather, they are a glimpse into Gissing's world, a world of London fogs, gaslight, shrimps for tea, and hats called chimney-pots; a world which no other novelist of his period has evoked so well.

19 x 13 cm. vi + 247 pp.

Very good condition. Price clipped dust jacket tanned on the spine. A touch of foxing to the page edges but overall clean and tidy.