/lit/ - Literature

I've had this for around three years, and I think I'm finally going to get around to reading it. Something about it gives me the impression it'll be laborious though.

Anybody on here read it? Opinions?

This book was mentioned on /lit/ a few weeks ago, and it was fantastic. It's completely reinvigorated my interest in Victorian Literature, which largely died after I grew weary of the outsized bildungsromans of Dicken, Austen, Bronte, etc.. Can anyone recommend other Victorian novels that are grounded in sobering realism instead of "Dickensian" outlandishness? That doesn't mean they have to be ridiculously depressing, I'm just not interested in novels with wish-fulfillment premises and cartoonish characters.

An impressionist painter is having a bad day.

George Gissing is just trying to get something to eat.