Will Warburton: a romance of real-life (1905) Free Novel by George Gissing

Will Warburton: A Romance Of Real Life is the last novel of George Gissing, it was written while he was dying and was not published until 1905, two years after his death. I read this immediately after his novel "In The Year Of Jubilee" for no reason other than it was next on my bookshelf. I almost skipped over it because I found myself so annoyed with "In The Year Of Jubilee" I thought I might need a break from Gissing, but I thoroughly enjoyed "Will Warburton". I was often amused by the ideas of Will and the people around him. The books begin with Will Warburton returning to his home in London after a holiday in Switzerland with "the sea-wind in his hair, his eyes agleam with the fresh memory of Alpine snows". We are told he is a young man "three or four years on the green side of thirty".Immediately on arriving at his flat in London his housekeeper, Mrs. Hopper tells him that her brother-in-law is in trouble again, and Will tells her to have the brother-in-law come to see him the next morning letting us know he intends to help the brother-in-law out of his trouble. Then we are told that Mrs. Hopper is not the best of housekeepers having a tendency to break things, a dish and two plates this time; although I'm not sure what the difference is between a dish and a plate, and that her ideas of cleanliness were by no means rigid; but that she was " a widow, she had a poor, loose-hung, trailing little body", again letting us know that Will is more interested in helping her than in her qualities as a housekeeper. Now he asks Mrs. Hopper about her sister and on hearing of her headaches volunteers to pay the expenses for the sister to go away for a change of air to help her condition. Having had a headache most of my life, I fail to see how a change of air will help, but I'm no doctor.It is clear that Will likes helping the less fortunate people with his money, and he likes his position in life, he likes having people depend on him and look up to him. However, Will is about to lose all he has and his life will change forever. Will is in partnership with Godfrey Sherwood, the sole representative of Sherwood Brothers and they own a sugar refinery. It says of Will