George Robert Gissing was born on November 22, 1857, and died on December 28, 1903. He was an English novelist who published 23 novels between 1880 and 1903. Recent years have seen a strong revival of interest in Gissing, many of whose novels are now available in reprints. A bridge between late Victorianism and early modernism, Gissing's novels combine two essential themes of the period; the isolation and struggle of the artist and the economic bondage of the proletariat. New Grub Street (1891) and his own indirect autobiography, The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft (1903), reveal the close connection in Gissing between fiction and autobiography. Workers in the Dawn (1880) and Demos: A Story of English Socialism (1892) dramatizes Gissing's conviction that economic and class divisions are central to human character and individual destiny. Gissing died from emphysema at age 46 after catching a chill on an ill-advised winter walk. Verinilda was published incomplete in 1904. He is is buried in the English cemetery at Saint-Jean-de-Luz.
Bernard Bergonzi was born in London, England on April 13, 1929. He was a poet, critic, and professor. He taught English literature at Manchester University and Warwick University, where he remained until he retired in 1992. He wrote monographs on H. G. Wells, T. S. Eliot, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Thomas Arnold, and Graham Greene. His other books included Manchester: The Early H. G. Wells, Heroes' Twilight, The Situation of the Novel, The Myth of Modernism, Exploding English, The Roman Persuasion, Wartime and Aftermath, War Poets and Other Subjects, A Victorian Wanderer, and A Study in Greene. He died on September 20, 2016 at the age of 87.