Workers in the Dawn

Workers in the Dawn

First edition title page
Author	George Gissing
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Publisher	Remington
Publication date	1880

Workers in the Dawn is a novel by George Gissing, which was originally published in three volumes in 1880. It was the first of Gissing's published novels, although he had been working on another prior to this. The work focuses on the unhappy marriage of Arthur Golding, a rising artist from a poor background, and Carrie Mitchell, a prostitute. This plot was partly based on Gissing's negative experiences of marriage to his first wife. It also was designed to serve the function of political polemic, highlighting social issues that Gissing felt strongly about. Reviews of the novel generally recognised some potential in the author, but were critical of Workers in the Dawn. After reading the first known published review in the Athenaeum, Gissing was driven to describe critics as "unprincipled vagabonds".

Arthur Golding grows up in poverty in London, and is orphaned at the age of eight. With the help of others, he succeeds in leaving this life behind, gains an education and embarks on a career as an artist. He also meets and marries Helen Norman. Arthur later meets a prostitute named Carrie Mitchell and marries her. This second marriage is an unhappy one, with Carrie and Arthur eventually separating due to her drunkenness and unsavoury associations.

After inheriting some money from Helen Norman's father, Arthur attempts to renew his marriage to Helen, although this does not last long when Helen finds out about Arthur's marriage to Carrie. Arthur is driven to commit suicide by jumping over Niagara Falls.

Although Workers in the Dawn is the first of Gissing's published novels, it was not his first attempt at writing one. He had worked on another novel previously, but this unknown work was not accepted by any publishers, and has not survived. The writing of Workers in the Dawn was completed in about a year, and is the longest of Gissing's novels, with over 280,000 words across three volumes. The completion of the work was largely the result of encouragement and support from his friend Eduard Bertz. Writing to a friend in Germany, Bertz described himself as "in a way...the begetter of the book".

The novel is partly based on Gissing's own experiences of an unhappy marriage, to his first wife Marianne Helen Harrison. As well as this semi-autobiographical element, Gissing intended the book to have a social message. In a letter to his brother Algernon after publication, Gissing described the work as an "attack upon certain features of our present religious and social life which to me appear highly condemnable", particularly the "criminal negligence of governments". As an author, he saw himself as "a mouthpiece of the Radical party", concluding that "It is not a book for women and children, but for thinking and struggling men."