Arnold Bennett

Enoch Arnold Bennett (May 27, 1867-March 27, 1931) was a British novelist.

Contents

1 Life 2 Work 3 Works 4 Quote 5 External links

Life

He was born in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, one of six towns in the area known as the Potteries. Enoch Bennett, his father, had qualified as a solicitor in 1876 and had an office in Piccadilly Street, Hanley. The younger Bennett was brought up in modest surroundings and educated locally and at the University of London.

At age 21 Arnold, who worked as a rent collector, left his father's practice and went to London as a solicitor's clerk. He won a literary competition in "Tit Bits" magazine in 1889 and was encouraged to take up journalism full time. In 1894 he became assistant editor of the periodical "Woman". He noticed that the material offered by a syndicate to the magazine was not very good, so he wrote a serial which was bought by the syndicate for 75 pounds. He then wrote another. This became The Grand Babylon Hotel. Just over four years later his first novel A Man from the North was published to critical acclaim and he became editor to the magazine.

From 1900 he devoted himself full time to writing, giving up the editorship and writing much serious criticism, and also theatre journalism, one of his special interests. In 1902 Anna of the Five Towns, the first of a succession of stories which detailed life in the Potteries, appeared.

In 1903 he moved to Paris, where other great artists from around the world had converged on Montmartre and Montparnasse. Bennett spent the next eight years writing novels and plays. In 1908 The Old Wives' Tale was published, and was an immediate success throughout the English-speaking world. After a visit to America in 1911 where he had been publicised and acclaimed as no other visiting writer since Dickens, he returned to England where the Old Wives' Tale was reappraised and hailed as a masterpiece. During the First World War, he became Director of Propaganda at the War Ministry. He refused a knighthood in 1918. In 1926 at the suggestion of Lord Beaverbrook, he began writing an influential weekly article on books for the Evening Standard newspaper.

He separated from his French wife in 1922 but fell in love with the actress Dorothy Cheston, with whom he remained until his death from typhoid in 1931. His ashes are buried in Burslem cemetery. Their daughter Virginia Eldin lives in France and is president of the Arnold Bennett Society.

Work

His most famous works are the Clayhanger trilogy and The Old Wives' Tale.

His novel "Buried Alive" was made into the 1912 movie "The Great Adventure" and several his books have been made into films and television mini-series over the years.

Bennett believed in ordinary people. His style reminds one of Maupassant, one of the French writers on whom he modeled himself. Bennett made simple things and ordinary people interesting.

He has also documented the daily life in the Potteries as well as anyone could have done. In his novel, the Potteries are referred to as "the Five Towns"; Bennett felt that the name was more euphonious than "the Six Towns" so Fenton was forgotten. The real towns and their Bennett counterparts are:

The Six Towns of Stoke-on-Trent	Bennett's Five Towns
Tunstall	Turnhill
Burslem	Bursley
Hanley	Hanbridge
Stoke	Knype
Fenton	The 'forgotten town'
Longton	Longshaw

Works

Fiction

• A Man from the North - 1898
• The Grand Babylon Hotel - 1902
• Anna of the Five Towns - 1902
• The Gates of Wrath - 1903
• A Great Man - 1904
• Teresa of Watling Street - 1904
• Sacred and Profane Love - 1905 (Originally published as The Book of Carlotta)
• Tales of the Five Towns - 1905 (short story collection)
• Whom God Hath joined - 1906
• Hugo - 1906
• The Grim Smile of the Five Towns - (short stories 1907)
• Buried Alive - 1908
• The Old Wives' Tale - 1908
• The Card - 1910
• Clayhanger - 1910
• Helen with a High Hand - 1910 (Serial title: The Miser's Niece)
• Hilda Lessways - 1911
• Milestones - play written with E.Knoblock
• The Matador of the Five Towns - (short stories 1912)
• The Regent - 1913 (US Title: The Old Adam)
• These Twain - 1916
• The Pretty Lady - 1918
• The Roll-Call - 1918
• Mr Prohack - 1922
• Riceyman Steps - 1923
• The Clayhanger Family - 1925, the complete trilogy consisting of Clayhanger, Hilda Lessways, and These Twain
• The Strange Vanguard - 1928
• Imperial Palace - 1930
• Venus Rising from the Sea - 1931

Non-fiction

• Journalism For Women - 1898
• Fame and Fiction - 1901
• How to Become an Author - 1903
• The Reasonable Life - 1907
• Literary Taste: How To Form It - 1909
• How to Live on 24 Hours a Day - 1910
• Mental Efficiency - 1911
• Those United States - 1912 (Also published as Your United States)
• Self and Self-Management - 1918
• The Human Machine - 1925
• How to Live - 1925, consisting of How to Live on 24 Hours a Day, The Human Machine, Mental Efficiency, and Self and Self-Management
• The Savour of Life - 1928

For further guidance consult Studies in the sources of Arnold Bennett's novels by Louis Tillier (Didier, Paris 1949), and Arnold Bennett and Stoke-on-Trent by E. J. D. Warrilow (Etruscan Publications, 1966). Also see here (http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/swnnrtn/bennett/chap2.htm#Bib) for a fairly complete list of his published works.

Quote

"In front, on a little hill in the vast valley, was spread out the Indian-red architecture of Bursley - tall chimneys and rounded ovens, schools, the new scarlet market, the high spire of the evangelical church... ...the crimson chapels, and rows of little red houses with amber chimney pots, and the gold angel of the Town Hall topping the whole. The sedate reddish browns and reds of the composition all netted in flowing scarves of smoke, harmonised exquisitely with the chill blues of the chequered sky. Beauty was achieved, and none saw it".

—Clayhanger (1910)

External links

• Template:Gutenberg author
• The Potteries (http://www.thepotteries.org/)
• Omelette Arnold Bennett (http://thefoody.com/cheese/omelettearnoldbennett.html) A late supper dish that was created at the Savoy Hotel specially for Mr. Bennett