The Private Life Of Henry Maitland

An Early Novel About George Gissing

"The Private Life of Henry Maitland" (1912) is the first extended biographical treatment of the late Victorian English novelist, George Gissing (1857 - 1903). The author, Morley Roberts, (1857 - 1942 ) had known Gissing since youth. Gissing today is known to a small but devoted group of readers and scholars. Morley Roberts, who wrote extensively and lived in Australia and the United States during a long life, is read and remembered primarily for his novelistic and other recollections of his friend.

The title and format of Roberts's book derives from Gissing's own late autobiographical novel, "The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft" which was Gissing's most popular book during his life. Among Gissing's works, "Ryecroft" is generally not highly regarded today, and Roberts himself is critical of the book. As in "Ryecroft", the account of Gissing's life is presented by a narrator in the guise of a narrative that he has received from a friend who was an intimate friend of its subject, Maitland. Besides echoing Gissing's own book, presenting its subject at a double remove, this mode of presentation makes clear that Roberts' book is to be regarded as a work of literature (as is "Ryecroft") rather than as a straightforward analytical biography of its subject. The fictitious writer of the biography says:

"I am far more concerned to write about Henry Maitland for those who loved him than for those who loved him not, and I shall be much better pleased if what I do about him takes the shape of an impression rather than of anything like an ordinary biography. Every important and unimportant political fool who dies nowadays is buried under obituary notices and a mausoleum in two volumes - a mausoleum which is, as a rule, about as high a work of art as the angels on tombstones in an early Victorian cemetery. But Maitland, I think, deserves, if not a better, a more sympathetic tribute."

"Henry Maitland" tells its story in a generally chronological manner with a great deal of digression, rambling and repetition. Names of the characters in the book and of Gissing's novels are changed. The author offers many reflections on Gissing's character, on the books he read, his religious, religious, philosophical and political views, and on his relationship with women. The strengths of the book derive from the obvious intimacy that Roberts had with Gissing. With all his affection for Gissing, Roberts offers a portrait of a highly flawed and troubled person which some of Gissing's admirers have found overly critical. Roberts writes:

"If Henry Maitland bleeds and howls, so did Philoctetes, and the outcry of Henry Maitland is more pertinent to our lives. For all life, even at its best, is tragic; and there is much in Maitland's which is dramatically common to our world as we see it and live in it. If we have lessened him at times from the point of view of a hireling in biographic praise, we have set him down life size all the same; and, as we ask for no praise, we care for no blame. Here is the man."

The book is at its best in describing Gissing's relationships with his two wives, and Roberts' own role as a friend in counseling Gissing on the folly of his choices. Roberts also describes the poor, life that both he and Gissing led during their early days as writers in London, in poor, crabbed, cheerless tenements. There is a picture of 19th Century Bohemia in the description of the two friends. Roberts also offers testimony to Gissing's final years and to his death after a lingering, painful illness in France.

Many students of Gissing question some of Roberts' judgments about his friend. Indeed Roberts points out the difficulty in any person in understanding another, even one loved and familiar: "I used to think I knew him very well, and yet when I remember and reflect it seems to me that I know exceedingly little about him. And yet again, I am certain that of the two people in the world that I was best acquainted with he was one." Roberts' claims, for example, that Gissing was not a born novelist but instead should have been destined for an academic career in the classics if his youthful sins with women had not ruined his prospects. This for many readers is a difficult conclusion to sustain about the author of 23 novels plus other stories, criticisms and a travel book, many of which remain highly rewarding and show a large degree of literary skill.

"Henry Maitland" can be read in a number of ways. As a biography, Roberts' work has been superseded by the discovery of more information about Gissing and by a broader perspective than could be taken by that of a friend. Readers of Gissing have continued to disagree from the time the book was published until today about the accuracy of Roberts' portrayal of the man. To my reading, the book has a feel of immediacy and direct knowledge. But I think "Henry Maitland" is best read as a work of literature in its own right. It is a deeply personal novel more than a historical account. It succeeds as a story of a long friendship and as a portrait of an author about whom Roberts cared a great deal.

Roberts little novel will be of greatest interest to those readers who have already developed a passion for Gissing and a basic familiarity with some of his books. The books Roberts praises include Gissing's most famous novel, "New Grub Street." New Grub Street (Oxford World's Classics) But Roberts also justifiably praises Gissing's "Born in Exile" Born in Exile. which is too little read and his travel book "By the Ionian Sea". A recent biography is "George Gissing" by Paul Delany.

Robin Friedman