Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry

Poet and novelist. Born in Westgate, Wakefield, Yorkshire. Son of Thomas Waller Gissing and Margaret Bedford. Acquainted with many notable writers in his later life, including J. M. Barrie, H. G. Wells, and Edmund Gosse. Educated at Owens College and showed extreme promise as an academic, but was expelled for stealing money from other students. Lived in the United States after a brief prison sentence but returned to England after a few years to settle in London. Worked as a private tutor while beginning a writing career. Married his first wife, Nell, on 27 October 1879 and, after her death, married Edith Alice Underwood on 25 February 1891, but would later separate and finally settle in a common-law marriage with Gabrielle Marie Edith Fleury from 1899 onwards. Author of many novels, having become a prominent Victorian and Edwardian fiction writer by the end of his career. Biographical informaiton: ODNB. (BGL)