It features the story of a mechanical draughtsman named Maurice Hilliard, who comes into some money, which enables him to live without working.
Another artist was chosen to replace Barnard, and the 13-part[1] serial of Eve's Ransom eventually appeared in the Illustrated London News between January and March 1895.
However, he criticised Gissing for not including "some flash of joy or humour" in the book and questioned whether, despite its apparent realism, it was "really representative of life".
Wells suggested that this was a recurring issue with Gissing's novels, which reduced them "from the faithful representation of life to...the genre of nervous exhaustion".
[5] A reviewer in The Morning Post suggested that many readers would be "disappointed" by Eve's Ransom, due to its lack of human interest and its unsatisfying characters.
The reviewer lamented the fact that Gissing had overlooked "elements of the human drama...and contented himself with writing merely a clever novel".
[6] The Manchester Guardian featured a more positive review, which suggested that, unlike Gissing's previous novels, it is "possessed of just that subtle power of arresting the attention and arousing the sympathies of the reader".