Born in Exile

by George Gissing

"Born in Exile" by George Gissing is a novel published in 1892. It follows Godwin Peak, a brilliant scholarship student who abandons his promising academic career rather than face social humiliation. Desperate to climb into upper-class society, he devises an audacious scheme involving religious hypocrisy and romantic pursuit. His plan brings him tantalizingly close to everything he desires—status, acceptance, and love—but his deceptions threaten to unravel. The novel explores the painful collision between intellectual ambition and rigid class boundaries in Victorian England.