To the Editors:
As a longtime admirer of George Gissing, I wish to protest against the ignorant condescension (to borrow a phrase) displayed toward Gissing by Donald Lyons in The New Criterion (March 1991). While I would not rate Gissing as the equal of Dickens, Thackeray, or Trollope, he was cer tainly not, as Lyons seems to imply, another Bulwer-Lvtton who wrote only one good book. Besides New Grub Street, Gissing wrote, among other works, The Nether World, Born in Exile, The Odd Women, In the Tear of the Jubilee, and The Pri vate Papers of Henry Ryecroft. These books are, in my opinion and that of many other people, emi nently worth reading. They are not, at any rate, “hack work” produced by an author who had a “minor” career.
J. Kevin Branigan
Rochester, NY
