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Arnold Bennett
Bennett is best known for his novels and short stories, many of which are set in a fictionalised version of the Potteries, which he called The Five Towns. He strongly believed that literature should be accessible to ordinary people, and he deplored literary cliques and élites. His books appealed to a wide public and sold in large numbers. For this reason writers and supporters of the modernist school belittled him, and much of his work became neglected after his death.
Enoch Arnold Bennett (always known as Arnold Bennett). In 1905 Bennett became engaged to Eleanor Green, a member of an eccentric and unreliable American family living in Paris, but at the last moment, after the wedding invitations had been sent out, she broke off the engagement and swiftly married a fellow American. Drabble comments that Bennett was well rid of her, but it was a painful episode in his life. In early 1907 he met Marguerite Soulié (1874–1960), who soon became first a friend, then a lover and then a wife.
Books by Arnold Bennett
Mental Efficiency – Mental Exercises
Mental Efficiency , a light hearted yet thought-provoking collection of articles, Bennett offers his thoughts on exercising the mind, organising your life, the advantages (and disadvantages) of marriage and other pocket philosophies. The book stands...
The Old Wives’ Tale
A simple concept of parallels and contrasts in the lives of sisters, carefully told with gentle irony. It starts in 1864 when Constance and Sophia are 16 and 15 respectively and follows them to the end of their lives. Book 1 covers their teenage year...
How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day
This book is a classic piece on self-improvement teaching you to live to the fullest. Judging from the title of the book, the reader might expect that the book is a manual on how to manage your time better. Nothing could be further from the truth, t...
Mental Efficiency and Other Hints to Men and Women
Mental Efficiency and Other Hints to Men and Women is one of the many self help books that Bennett wrote, the most famous of these being How to Live 24 Hours a Day. It is highly readable, amusing and offers wisdom in an extremely palatable form. Benn...
The Grand Babylon Hotel
The Grand Babylon Hotel is a novel by Arnold Bennett, published in January 1902, about the mysterious disappearance of a German prince. It originally appeared as a serial in the Golden Penny. The titular Grand Babylon was modelled on the Savoy Hotel...
The Human Machine
Bennett asks us to consider our brains as the most wonderful machine, a machine which is the only thing in this world that we can control. As he writes: "I am simply bent on calling your attention to a fact which has perhaps wholly or partially escap...
The Ghost: A Modern Fantasy
The novel opens with Carl Foster, a recently qualified doctor, coming to London to try and make his fortune. He meets a famous tenor, Signor Alresca, who suffers a dreadful injury backstage and Foster tends to him. He thus meets the lead soprano, Ros...
Hilda Lessways
This book is the second in Bennett’s four books about life in the Five Towns (the real life Potteries in Staffordshire). It tells the story of Hilda before her marriage to Edwin Clayhanger (from the first book). Bennett explores Hilda's ambition to m...
The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories
Twenty-two short stories by Arnold Bennett, mainly set in the 'Five Towns', Bennett's name for the pottery manufacturing towns of the English midlands.
The Roll-Call
"The Roll-Call" is the sequel to the Clayhanger trilogy. This book concerns the young life of Clayhanger's stepson, George. George Edwin Cannon (he quickly dropped the surname Clayhanger), is an architect, in many ways representing the ambitions held...
These Twain
It chronicles the married life of Edwin and Hilda. Edwin, released from the controlling influence of his father, finds himself free to run his business and his life, but his freedom is diminished by his wife's caprices. Hilda does not conform to the...
The Feast of St. Friend
In The Feast of St. Friend, a Christmas book, Arnold Bennett shares his views on Christmas as the season of goodwill. As always, Bennett's writing includes some thought-provoking ideas liberally spiced with his wry sense of humour, and as always too,...
Self and Self-Management: Essays about Existing
Bennett's essays always provide food for thought and bring a wry smile to the lips. Human nature, it appears, changes little over the ages, and Bennett, as always, stands the test of time, though in the case of some of the essays in this eclectic col...
Literary Taste: How to Form It
Literary Taste: How to Form it is a long essay by Arnold Bennett, first published in 1909, with a revised edition by his friend Frank Swinnerton appearing in 1937. It includes a long list of recommended books, every item individually costed. Both th...
The Price of Love
Rachel Louise Fleckring works for the elderly Mrs Maldon, and although with the woman for only a short time, she is taken into the heart of the family. She falls in love with one of Mrs Maldon's descendants, but along the way, she has to come to term...
The Card
The Card is a comic novel written by Arnold Bennett in 1911 (entitled Denry the Audacious in the American edition). It was later made into a 1952 movie, starring Alec Guinness and Petula Clark.
Helen with the High Hand
It follows the story of Helen Rathbone, a confident and independent young woman living in Edwardian England. In this coming-of-age tale, Helen is faced with the challenges of navigating society's expectations of her gender and class while also pursu...
The Pretty Lady
Christine, a French prostitute, flees to London during World War I in search of a better life. She meets and falls in love with Hoape, a wealthy Englishman, but their relationship is complicated by their different social backgrounds and by the war. C...
The Loot Of Cities
The bustling streets of early 20th-century London, a city of contrasts, ambitions, and secrets. Written by the acclaimed author Arnold Bennett, this gripping tale follows the lives of several individuals whose paths intertwine as they embark on a que...
Mr. Prohack
Suddenly unemployed and penniless, Mr. Prohack must learn to live on a budget and find new meaning in his life. Mr. Prohack is a successful Treasury official who suddenly finds himself unemployed and penniless after his department is abolished. He i...
Lilian
What happens when a young woman with a taste for adventure leaves her mundane job for a life of luxury and excitement? In his novel Lilian, Arnold Bennett tells the story of a young typist named Lilian who is seduced by the promises of a wealthy and...
The Old Adam
What if a successful businessman was suddenly forced to confront his own mortality? Edward Henry Machin is a successful businessman who has everything he could ever want in life. He has a beautiful wife, a lovely home, and a thriving business. But w...
Tales of the Five Towns
This is a selection of short stories recounting, with gentle satire and tolerant good humour, the small town provincial life at the end of the nineteenth century, based around the six towns in the county of Staffordshire, England, known as the Potter...
Anna of the Five Towns
The plot centers on Anna Tellwright, daughter of a wealthy but miserly and dictatorial father, living in the Potteries area of Staffordshire, England. Her activities are strictly controlled by the Methodist church. Having escaped her father by marryi...
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