The Crown of Life

At the time Gissing wrote this classic, yet somewhat controversial work, he had recently met and fallen in love with Gabrielle Fleury, his French translator, after two rather disastrous relationships with working class women. His affair with Gabrielle was to last until his premature death in 1903, and probably accounts for the more optimistic view of life contained in his last works, including 'the Crown of Life'. In this novel, Gissing sets out to show the primacy of spiritual love in life, and to do this by illustrating the dire consequences of relationships where affection has little depth or is missing altogether. In particular, he condemns conventional Victorian attitudes towards engagement and marriage. The greatness of the novel lies partly in his masterful linking of the idea that majority of people are dissatisfied or unhappy in their personal lives to dissatisfaction that is translated into conflict in the personal, social, and even national arenas. This all-new, fully re-edited and re-typeset Wakefield Edition provides a new introduction together with foreign language translations and extensive notes on the underlying historical and political themes of the novel.