Thanks to Chris for noting that Open Book on Radio 4 recently covered nineteenth century novelist George Gissing and his novel New Grub Street.
The main character is one Edwin Reardon, and there’s also a Jasper Milvain. Familiar names to fans of Ed Reardon’s Week like myself. Listen to the extract here:

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Or go to the Radio 4 website and listen to the whole thing.
I’ve immediately got a copy of New Grub Street and will fascinated to find out what links there might be. Christopher Douglas, who’s immediately recognisable as the voice of Ed, who co-writes Ed Reardon’s Week, claims here that there aren’t a great many parallels. Nonetheless, it’ll be fascinating to read more.
And just another plea at this point, if I may, to the good burghers of BBC Audio: please release Ed Reardon’s Week on CD! I get fair bit of traffic to this website from people searching for mp3s and the audio since aside from hoping it pops up again on BBC7, there’s no way to legally get hold of the episodes.