The Nether World (1889) is Gissing’s fifth London-based novel. It sits alongside New Grub Street (1891), Born in Exile (1892) and The Whirlpool (1897) as one of the few of his novels whose titles are spatial rather than temporal or character-based. Despite being the most geographically concise, or ‘correspondent’, of Gissing’s novels, with strictly demarcated streets, areas and landmarks, The Nether World’s settings have imaginative significance. For instance, the ‘nether world’ itself, representing working-class Clerkenwell, is in a way metaphorical and allegorical. It draws a figurative connection between the ‘real’, historical London district and a hellish underworld, between accuracy and impression.