The Unclassed is a novel by the English author George Gissing. It was written during 1883 but revised, at the publisher's insistence, in February 1884 and shortly before publication.Wolff, Joseph J. (1953). "Gissing's Revision of 'The Unclassed'," Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. VIII, No. 1, pp. 42–52.
It tells the story of a young, educated man, Osmond Waymark, who survives by teaching. He answers a magazine advertisement, placed by Julian Casti – a half-Italian who had felt himself to be rejected by society – for companionship and the two strike up a serious and deep friendship.
References
Further reading Harsh, Constance D. (1992). "Gissing's the Unclassed and the Perils of Naturalism," ELH, Vol. LIX, No. 4, pp. 911–938. Korg, Jacob (1963). George Gissing: A Critical Biography. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Matz, B.W. (1909). "George Meredith as Publisher's Reader," Fortnightly Review, Vol. LXXXVI, pp. 282–298.
External links The Unclassed, at Project Gutenberg
The Unclassed, Vol. II, Vol. III, at Internet Archive