A ROMANCE BY GEORGE GISSING = AUTHOR OF THE PRIVATE PAPERS OF London ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND COMPANY, LTD. 1904 THIS book appears under circumstances even more pathetic than those which must always attend a posthumous work. Not only was the writer cut off at the age of forty-six before this romance was in type, but he did not live to bring it quite to its natural close. It is printed by those he left behind him from his papers in the state in which they were found. There were no adequate materials to show how he had designed it to end. And it was out of the question to attempt to supply what he was not permitted to complete. Yet it is not in any sense a fragment; nor is it at all a rough preliminary sketch. It is finished with that spirit of loving care and delicacy of touch which George Gissing gave to his best work. And the two or three missing chapters are not indispensable for us to judge the piece as a work of art. It is not at all a torso-a trunk without limbs or head. It is a finished piece of sculpture, from which some portions have been broken off and lost. To the thoughtful reader this lacuna will but add to the pathos and the charm of this singularly original book. Veranilda, a story of Roman and Goth,' is an historical romance constructed on a plan most unusual in the conventional historical novel. It deals with real historical personages and actual historical events; and it is composed after long and minute study of the best contemporary sources and what remains of the literature of the time. The epoch of the tale, the sixth century, the age of Justinian and Belisarius, is a time of which the general reader knows almost nothing, except for a few crowded pages of Gibbon, and indeed very few scholars know much at first hand. The scene is Rome, Central and Southern Italy, a country which was carefully studied by the author in his Italian travels. The period and the events are covered by the fourth volume of Dr. Hodgkin's great work, Italy and her Invaders, to which many a reader of Veranilda will be glad to turn to refresh his memory. But the setting of the tale itself was drawn, not from any modern compilations, but from local observation of the scenes depicted in the story and elaborate study of the extant documents. Fascinated as I have always been myself with the history, antiquities, and topography of Rome and its surroundings, I have read the proofs of Veranilda with keen pleasure; and I judge it to be far the most important book which George Gissing ever produced : that one of his writings which will have the most continuing life. It is, in my opinion, composed in a new vein of his genius: with a wider and higher scope, a more mellow tone than the studies of contemporary life which first made his fame. I do not pretend to have read all of these, nor indeed did I always feel in touch with everything of his that I did read. But in Veranilda, I think, his poetical gift for local colour, his subtle insight into spiritual mysticism, and, above all, his really fine scholarship and classical learning, had ample field. If I was invited to read the sheets as they were printed and to write a prefatory note, it was as being one who had known the whole literary career of George Gissing from the first to the last. It was in 1880 (he was then but twenty-two), when he sent me his first book in three volumes: a book that very few have ever seen and which he subsequently declined to claim. Crude as it was, I recognised his power and did what I could to help him with work and introductions. Mr. John Morley, then editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, was willing to employ his pen. Gissing, however, though sorely pressed at the time, resolutely declined to engage in any miscellaneous work of journalism or criticism, but devoted himself with fervour and self-reliance to imaginative composition. A really brilliant scholar, and a writer of most graceful verse, for many years he accepted day pupils preparing for school, whilst he laboured at night at his ideal creations. This is not the place to offer any appreciation of his success, nor can I pretend to undertake such a task. It is not the place, nor is it yet the time, to make any record of his career:-of his sorrows, his sufferings, his dreams, and his hopes. I will add only that I think these pages contain his best and most original work. FREDERIC HARRISON. |
