SOURCE: “Short Stories,” in George Gissing, Twayne Publishers, 1983, pp. 112-23.

In the following essay, Selig outlines the themes and plots of Gissing's most accomplished short stories: “A Victim of Circumstances,” “Comrades in Arms,” “The Schoolmaster's Vision,” and “The House of Cobwebs.”

George Gissing's still-underrated short stories deserve to rank among the best of the late-Victorian era. He wrote some 110 in all, many very fine. Once he had mastered the art of brief narrative, it allowed him to break away from the wills, rival lovers, and theatrical climaxes that often clutter his novels. His finest short stories end, not with a melodramatic bang, but an ironic whimper. Yet even Gissing's admirers tend to ignore his impressive short fiction, perhaps because it has become rather inaccessible.¹

Gissing's work in the short-story form falls into three distinct periods. First came the 1877 journeyman pieces written in America and the few additional ones...