Name: Isabel Clarendon, Vol. I (of II)
Author: George Gissing
ISBN: 978-8826406589

Isabel Clarendon, Vol. I (of II)

By George Gissing 28 Dec, 2019

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In 'Capital in the Twenty-First Century' Thomas Picketty argues that, with slower economic growth, inherited wealth becomes much more important in maintaining and widening social inequality. Perhaps, then, we will be able to enjoy a crop of novels by post-millennials that compete with the Victorians for using the Last Will and inadequate patrimony as key plot devices. George Gissing deploys both brilliantly in this early novel and would continue to do so (at least) until the publication of 'The Odd Women'. The contrast between The Odd Women and Isabel Clarendon is that, in the latter, it is a male character, Kingcote, rather than a female who is left to make a way in the world without the bourgeois advantage of family money. Inevitably, within the arc of naturalism, this flaw leads to a decline - in Kingote's case into trade (although, blessedly, not so low as to become a grocer). Kingcote's capital generates a meagre £60 per annum - not enough to marry and not enough to keep his widowed sister from the workhouse. Isabel Clarendon is content to share his poverty and want him only to assert mastery. Less

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