Demos: A Story of English Socialism

Gissing's Demos

It is an event when a new edition of a rare novel of the late Victorian writer George Gissing (1857 -- 1903) becomes available. "Demos" was Gissing's third novel and was first published anonymously in 1886. It is one of a series of Gissing's early novels that deal with the lives of the London poor. As its subtitle, "A Story of English Socialism" suggests, "Demos" has an overtly political theme. The novel appeared and drew much attention during a period of substantial socialist agitation in England, including the Haymarket riots of 1886. This new edition of "Demos" is published by a small press, Victorian Secrets Ltd., which has the goal of making accessible unjustly forgotten works of Victorian fiction. Victorian Secrets earlier published Gissing's first novel, "Workers in the Dawn" Workers in the Dawn and has followed it with this important work. Debbie Harrison, an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of London, has edited the volume together with an Introduction, background notes, and an Appendix summarizing "The Politics of Demos". The preeminent Gissing scholar Pierre Coustillas has written a Preface to the volume. "Demos" is the only novel of Gissing that was made into a movie. Titled "Why Men Forget" in its 1921 American release, the film featured Milton Rosner and Evelyn Brent in the two leading roles. The movie has become as obscure as the novel on which it is based and does not appear to be available on DVD.

The unthinking, irrational mob, personified in the title "Demos" is the main character in the novel. Gissing deeply distrusted the mob together with democracy in general. George Orwell offered a more particularized description of the novel's subject. He wrote that the book told "a story of the moral and intellectual corruption of a working-class Socialist who inherits a fortune." The novel moves in its setting between the London slums and a fictitious village called Wanley, located in a peaceful rural setting. Wanley is about to become the site for extensive mining and manufacturing operations which will destroy its idyllic character while providing jobs to many workers.

The main individual character in the novel is Richard Mutimer, a worker who is an active speaker in the Socialist movement. When a distant relative, also named Mutimer, dies apparently without a will, Richard Mutimer appears to inherit his entire extensive estate which centers on Wanley and the mineral resources that the elder Mutimer had just begun to exploit. When he learns of his windfall, Mutimer decides to continue the mining and manufacturing at what he calls New Wanley. He proposes to turn the project into a model socialist community run for the benefit of the workers. Mutimer's elderly mother is skeptical about the project from the beginning. She does not want to leave her poor rooms or her children. In addition to Richard the family includes a daughter, Alice, known aptly as the "Princess" and a young son, Harry or 'Arry who shows all the makings of a wastrel.

Richard has been engaged to a poor working girl, Emma Vine, who adores him. With his new fortune and project, Richard callously jettisons Emma in favor of a girl from a middle-class family which has fallen upon hard times. At the urging of her mother and brother Alfred, Adela Waltham reluctantly agrees to marry Richard Mutimer. She tries to be a dutiful wife but can find no love for Richard. As the story continues, Adela comes to detest her husband before a measure of reconciliation towards the end.

As Richard Mutimer proceeds with the faltering New Wanley, Adela accidently finds that old Mutimer died leaving a will after all. Richard Mutimer wants to destroy the hidden will, but Adela insists on honoring it. With a visit to the Solicitor, all the property reverts to one Hubert Eldon, 22, a protege of old Mutimer. Hubert and Adela had been romantically involved but Adela's mother stopped the relationship due to Hubert's apparent impovrishment and some unseemly behavior. The story has a long, tragic denouement as Richard Mutimer tries to regain his position in the Socialist movement together with a semblance of affection from Adela.

In scenes of public meetings and London streets, "Demos" offers a portrayal of the life of the London poor. The Socialist movement, in its many factions also receives detailed description. The figures of the movement range from workers such as Mutimer to intellectualized and removed upper-middle class supporters, to radicals who aim to destroy the social order, to communists. Many of the characters in "Demos", particularly Richard Mutimer, his mother. Adela, and a curate in Wanley named Wyvern who appears to be the closest character to Gissing's own understanding of his story, are well-presented. The novel is difficult because of its length and depth and because of Gissing's own ambivalence towards his subject matter. The writing is uneven and includes long, tangled subplots. Gissing has sympathy with the lives of the urban poor and shares their criticism of unfettered capitalism. The dominant tone of the book is pessimistic as Gissing rejects Socialism and denies that class distinctions between people can be forcefully overcome during a short period of time.

"Demos" includes many striking individual passages, including its portrayal of Richard Mutimer's hands (shown on the cover of the book), Adela's realization during a train ride to London of her feelings toward her husband, and many of the reflections of Wyvern on modernity, the poor, and the developing class of restless, educated individuals with little to do and less in in the way of thought or commitment. The most famous scene in "Demos" occurs after the death of Emma Vine's sister, Jane. Gissing describes the desolate scene at the Manor Park Cemetery upon Jane's burial (p 233):

"Here on the waste limits of that dread East, to wander among tombs is to go hand in hand with the stark and eyeless emblem of mortality; the spirit fails beneath the cold burden of ignoble destiny. Here lie those who were born for toil; who, when toil has worn them to the uttermost, have but to yield their useless breath and pass into oblivion. For them is no day, only the brief twilight of a winter sky between the former and the latter night. For them no aspiration; for them no hope of memory in the dust; their very children are wearied into forgetfulness. Indistinguishable units in the vast throng that labours but to support life, the name of each father, mother, child, is as a dumb cry for the warmth and love of which Fate so stinted them. The wind wails above their narrow tenements; the sandy soil, soaking in the rain as soon as it has fallen, is a symbol of the great world which absorbs their toil and straight-away blots their being."

A complex, passionate book written on the whole in a gray style, "Demos" is not for every reader. The book remains rewarding and deserves to be remembered. Victorian Secrets Ltd. has done a great service in making the novel available in this excellent new edition.

Robin Friedman