After returning to England, Gissing settled in London with Nell, writing fiction and working as a private tutor. He failed to get his first novel "Workers in the Dawn" accepted by a publisher and published it privately, funding it with money from an inheritance. Gissing married Nell on 27 October 1879. Their marriage was plagued with poverty and they were frequently separated while Nell was hospitalised for poor health. One of his friends was fellow author and Owens College alumnus Morley Roberts, who wrote a novel based on Gissing's life, "The Private Life of Henry Maitland", in 1912. He was friends with Eduard Bertz, a German socialist with whom he became acquainted in 1879. Gissing spent much time reading classical authors at the British Museum Reading Room, as well as coaching students for examinations. He took long walks through the streets of London observing the poor. In his reading, John Forster's "Life of Dickens" particularly interested him. He wrote in his diary entry for 23 January 1888 that Forster's work was "a book I constantly take up for impulse, when work at a standstill'.