2 JANUARY 1904, Page 11

We regret to note the death of Mr. George Gissing,

the novelist. Though many people found his novels almost un- readable from their sustained dreariness, he could not be accused of the gratuitous delineation of middle-class misery, for he had in his own person suffered all that he attributed to the most distressful of his characters, and the struggles of literary hacks depicted in " New Grub Street " were equalled by what he himself went through before he gained a hearing. The inherent kindliness of the man is attested by his capacity for friendship, by his keen appreciation of Dickens, and, above all, by the mellowing effect of success on his later work.