'23rd March 1929 (Saturday).
Bought a ?Monde?, a ?Canard Enchain??, and Goncourt?s ?La Faustin? then spent the afternoon reading.
? La Faustin? (Edmond Goncourt)'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
'I am just reading 'Germinie Lacerteux,' the masterpiece (I fancy) of the de Goncourts.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'Certain events (which I will relate when I see you?may it be soon) at the office have given me an idea for another novel; a study of religious mania?? la 'Madame Gervaisais', which you should read if you don?t know it already.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book
'In the late 1880s Gissing immersed himself in contemporary European fiction, as he had during previous periods of his life. Gissing's wide reading has been often noted but rarely assessed. Salient in any study of it would be his reading of Goethe and Heine in 1876 (and throughout his life), Eugene Sue and Henri Murger (in 1878 "Scenes de la Vie Boheme" was deepy influential), Comte (notably "Cours de Philosophie Positive" in 1878), Turgenev (in 1884 - but also constantly, for by the end of the decade he had read "Fathers and Sons" five times), Moliere, George Sand, Balzac, de Musset (whom he called indispensable" in 1885), Ibsen (in German, in the late 1880s), Zola, Dostoevski, the Goncourts (at least by the early 1890s). Gissing read with equal ease in French, German, Greek and latin, and these from an early age. Later he added Italian and late in life some Spanish'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gissing Print: Book
