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Set in the literary and journalistic buzz of late 19th-century London, New Grub Street depicts a world that George Gissing knew inside out. Elements of his own experience are diffused in different characters – in particular the struggling, talented Edwin Reardon and the young, "modern" Jasper Milvain – through which he explores the sense of crisis for writers at the time: the gulf between aesthetic integrity and commercial success. It was the first major novel to place the concept of authorship at the heart of the plot.

New Grub Street (1891) has the reputation of being George Gissing's finest novel. With bitter humour and grim realism, it tells the story of the ambitions, dreams, and disappointments of men and women struggling to earn their living as writers in the closing years of the Victorian era. Jasper Milvain is a young writer of limited talent, eager to exploit every opportunity and social connection in order to make his way. For those who toil "in the valley of the shadow of books" the spectre of poverty looms large.