George Gissing's New Grub Street has been widely lauded as one of the best novels ever written, but readers who harbor literary ambitions may want to approach this masterwork of realism with caution. By juxtaposing the lives of two very different breeds of writers, Jasper Milvain and Edwin Reardon, Gissing considers the evolving role of writers and literature in the modern world—and his ultimate assessment is unfailingly bleak.