Michael Snowdon inherits a substantial sum of money from his deceased son and decides to return from Australia to London. He spends only on necessities and lives like a poor man despite being able to live comfortably. His fortune is kept a secret even from his close friends and relatives. George Robert Gissing was an English novelist, a teacher and tutor throughout his life. He failed to get his first novel accepted by a publisher, and so published it privately, funding it with money from an inheritance. He published his first novel, Workers in the Dawn, in 1880 and later produced over twenty novels during his literary career becoming one of the most popular writers.