In a letter written to his German friend, Eduard Bertz, in February 1892, Gissing outlined his plans for a new novel: The book I now have in mind is to deal with the great question of ‘throwing pearls before swine’. It will present those people who, congenitally incapable of true education, have yet been taught to consider themselves too good for manual, or any humble, work. As yet I have chiefly dealt with types expressing the struggles of nature endowed above their station; now I turn to those who are below it. The story will be a study of vulgarism — the all but triumphant force of our time. Women will be the chief characters.1