The Whirlpool
George Gissing
Penguin Books Ltd
<p><i>'Marriage rarely means happiness, either for man or woman; if it be not too grievous to be borne, one must thank the fates and take courage'.</i></p><p></p><p>The greatest of English realist novelists, famous for <i>New Grub Street</i>, George Gissing creates in <i>The Whirlpool</i> an astonish picture of characters caught in the vortex of London, struggling to understand how they can make sense of their lives in a society of remorseless faithlessness and social snobbery.</p><p>A whole era is magnificently brought to life in all its glamour and squalor - and at the book's heart lies one of the most remarkable figures in English literature: Alma Rolfe, torn between an idyll of rural domesticity and her career in London as a musician.</p>