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# The Working Class Library Episode 1: New Grub Street by George Gissing
- URL: https://thebeemagazine.com/the-working-class-library-episode-1-new-grub-street-by-george-gissing/
- Published: 2025-05-04T07:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2025-06-17T15:50:40.000Z
- Description: Gissing expert Simon James joins us to consider how **New Grub Street** became so topical again, and to ask if it deserves a place in our fantasy library.
- Author: Richard Benson
- Tags: Podcast

[Listen to "New Grub Street by George Gissing" on Spreaker.](https://www.spreaker.com/episode/new-grub-street-by-george-gissing--64715003?ref=thebeemagazine.com) 

The Working Class Library is the Bee’s podcast. Each month Richard Benson, editor of the Bee, and Claire Malcolm, CEO of [New Writing North](https://newwritingnorth.com/?ref=thebeemagazine.com), invite a writer to discuss a book and decide whether it deserves a place on the shelves of the Working Class Library – our imaginary library of great books by and about ordinary people. 

For our first episode, Richard and Claire are joined by [Simon James](https://www.durham.ac.uk/staff/s-j-james/?ref=thebeemagazine.com), Professor of English Literature at Durham University, and George Gissing expert, to consider Gissing’s 1891 novel [New Grub Street](https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/new-grub-street-george-gissing/17862?ean=9781847499219&ref=thebeemagazine.com). 

Gissing wrote New Grub Street to skewer the new literary crowd and their readers as books and magazines were exploding in popularity following the arrival of mass education in Britain. What can it teach us about book publishing, the British class system and working-class writers today? 

If you have any thoughts or comments on the show, please come and chat to us on our social media channels.

### Books Mentioned

- John Carey – [The Intellectuals and the Masses](https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15568/9780571169269?ref=thebeemagazine.com)
- Charles Dickens – [Oliver Twist](https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15568/9781785996252?ref=thebeemagazine.com)
- EM Forster – [Howards End](https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15568/9780141182131?ref=thebeemagazine.com)
- George Gissing – [Charles Dickens: A Critical Study](https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15568/9781845882372?ref=thebeemagazine.com), [New Grub Street](https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15568/9781847499219?ref=thebeemagazine.com), [The Nether World](https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/George-Gissing/The-Nether-World/441447?ref=thebeemagazine.com), [The Odd Women](https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15568/9781513281506?ref=thebeemagazine.com), [Workers in the Dawn](https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/George-Gissing/Workers-in-the-Dawn/7485250?ref=thebeemagazine.com)
- Christine Huguet & Simon J James – [George Gissing and the Woman Question](https://www.routledge.com/George-Gissing-and-the-Woman-Question-Convention-and-Dissent/Huguet-James/p/book/9780367882242?srsltid=AfmBOop2jj3Pl1HWfHX896kosWqyT1L5EHnTYK0T4SK4H0G1HYgajXW-&ref=thebeemagazine.com)
- Simon J James – [Unsettled Accounts: Money and Narrative in the Novels of George Gissing](https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15568/9781843311089?ref=thebeemagazine.com)
- George Orwell – [Keep the Aspidistra Flying](https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/George-Orwell/Keep-the-Aspidistra-Flying/15446930?ref=thebeemagazine.com)
- Jonathan Rose – [The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes](https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Rose-Jonathan-Rose/The-Intellectual-Life-of-the-British-Working-Classes/17621892?ref=thebeemagazine.com)
- Douglas Stuart – [Shuggie Bain](https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15568/9781529019292?ref=thebeemagazine.com)
- Flora Thompson – [Lark Rise to Candleford](https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15568/9780141183312?ref=thebeemagazine.com)
- Raymond Williams – [Culture and Society](https://www.hive.co.uk/Search/Keyword?keyword=Culture%20and%20Society&productType=0&ref=thebeemagazine.com)

### Other Links

- [Tit-Bits Magazine](https://www.joyceproject.com/notes/040019titbits.htm?ref=thebeemagazine.com)
- [A Room of My Own: What Writers Need to Work Today](https://rsliterature.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/RSL-A-Room-of-My-Own-Report-19-June-2019.pdf?ref=thebeemagazine.com)
- [Authors’ Earnings in the UK](https://pec.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Authors-Earnings-in-the-UK-Creative-PEC-Policy-Brief-August-2023-Designed-v2.pdf?ref=thebeemagazine.com)

For each episode of the Working Class Library podcast, we commission a contemporary working-class writer to write about some of the issues raised by the book we’ve been discussing. For New Grub Street, [Damian Kerlin](https://substack.com/@damiankerlin?ref=thebeemagazine.com) asks why publishers are making it more and more difficult for writers to be paid money owed to them. 

[An Introduction to New Grub StreetHow the troubled George Gissing inspired Orwell, and foretold the influence of Amazon, BookTok and poverty porn.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/fc/56/fc56b9ab-b4c1-4291-8dc6-e491452ed510/content/images/icon/favicon-1.png)The BeeGeorgia Poplett![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/fc/56/fc56b9ab-b4c1-4291-8dc6-e491452ed510/content/images/thumbnail/GissingHeader-1-1024x660-1.jpg)](https://thebeemagazine.com/an-introduction-to-new-grub-street/)

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