In late-Victorian London, two writers of radically different temperaments pursue contrasting approaches to the literary life. The first, the talented and cerebral novelist Edwin Reardon, appears to be doomed by his idealistic nature to a life of impecuniousness, whereas the second, the driven but cynical journalist Jasper Milvain, continually reaps the material rewards of a career devoted to market-driven hack writing. When Reardon's intransigent sense of artistic integrity leads to the breakdown of his marriage, he begins to learn the true cost of his commitment to elevated principles and his refusal to pander to the demands of the marketplace, as the fates of the two rivals become ever more intertwined.

Published in 1891, and described by Orwell as "Gissing's masterpiece", New Grub Street is a powerful, haunting exploration of the plight of the professional writer in a philistine age, and of the perennial dichotomy between literary merit and commercial success.