Arnold Bennett’s Followers (322)

Arnold Bennett

Born

in Hanley, Staffordshire, England, The United Kingdom

May 27, 1867

Died

March 27, 1931

Website

http://www.arnoldbennettsociety.org.uk

Genre

Fiction

Influences

Guy de Maupassant; Emile Zola

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Enoch Arnold Bennett was an English author, best known as a novelist, who wrote prolifically. Between the 1890s and the 1930s he completed 34 novels, seven volumes of short stories, 13 plays (some in collaboration with other writers), and a daily journal totalling more than a million words. He wrote articles and stories for more than 100 newspapers and periodicals, worked in and briefly ran the Ministry of Information during the First World War, and wrote for the cinema in the 1920s. Sales of his books were substantial, and he was the most financially successful British author of his day.
Born into a modest but upwardly mobile family in Hanley, in the Staffordshire Potteries, Bennett was intended by his father, a solicitor, to follow him int Enoch Arnold Bennett was an English author, best known as a novelist, who wrote prolifically. Between the 1890s and the 1930s he completed 34 novels, seven volumes of short stories, 13 plays (some in collaboration with other writers), and a daily journal totalling more than a million words. He wrote articles and stories for more than 100 newspapers and periodicals, worked in and briefly ran the Ministry of Information during the First World War, and wrote for the cinema in the 1920s. Sales of his books were substantial, and he was the most financially successful British author of his day.
Born into a modest but upwardly mobile family in Hanley, in the Staffordshire Potteries, Bennett was intended by his father, a solicitor, to follow him into the legal profession. Bennett worked for his father before moving to another law firm in London as a clerk at the age of 21. He became assistant editor and then editor of a women's magazine before becoming a full-time author in 1900. Always a devotee of French culture in general and French literature in particular, he moved to Paris in 1903; there the relaxed milieu helped him overcome his intense shyness, particularly with women. He spent ten years in France, marrying a Frenchwoman in 1907. In 1912 he moved back to England. He and his wife separated in 1921, and he spent the last years of his life with a new partner, an English actress. He died in 1931 of typhoid fever, having unwisely drunk tap-water in France.
Many of Bennett's novels and short stories are set in a fictionalised version of the Staffordshire 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, and for his adherence to realism, writers and supporters of the modernist school, notably Virginia Woolf, belittled him, and his fiction became neglected after his death. During his lifetime his journalistic "self-help" books sold in substantial numbers, and he was also a playwright; he did less well in the theatre than with novels but achieved two considerable successes with Milestones (1912) and The Great Adventure (1913).
Studies by Margaret Drabble (1974), John Carey (1992), and others have led to a re-evaluation of Bennett's work. The finest of his novels, including Anna of the Five Towns (1902), The Old Wives' Tale (1908), Clayhanger (1910) and Riceyman Steps (1923), are now widely recognised as major works.
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Combine Editions
Arnold Bennett’s books

Average rating: 3.68 · 26,199 ratings · 3,206 reviews · 1,106 distinct works • Similar authors

	How to Live on 24 Hours a Day 3.62 avg rating — 9,544 ratings — published 1908 — 830 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Old Wives' Tale (The Five Towns #5) 3.85 avg rating — 4,833 ratings — published 1908 — 423 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Anna of the Five Towns (The Five Towns #2) 3.68 avg rating — 1,886 ratings — published 1902 — 291 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Grand Babylon Hotel by Arnold Bennett, Frank Swinnerton (Introduction) 3.48 avg rating — 1,680 ratings — published 1902 — 330 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Card (The Five Towns #7) 3.89 avg rating — 761 ratings — published 1911 — 206 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Enterrado en vida by Arnold Bennett, Vicente Vera (Translator) 3.78 avg rating — 703 ratings — published 1908 — 216 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Clayhanger (The Five Towns #6) by Arnold Bennett, Frank Swinnerton (Introduction) really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 537 ratings — published 1910 — 210 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Riceyman Steps 3.88 avg rating — 480 ratings — published 1923 — 1035 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	الذوق الأدبي: كيف يتكون by Arnold Bennett, دلال الرمضان (Translator ) 3.36 avg rating — 531 ratings — published 1909 — 82 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Human Machine 3.79 avg rating — 362 ratings — published 1908 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Arnold Bennett…

Series by Arnold Bennett

The Five Towns (11 books)
by

Arnold Bennett

3.82 avg rating — 9,011 ratings

Quotes by Arnold Bennett (?)

“The chief beauty about time
is that you cannot waste it in advance.
The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you,
as perfect, as unspoiled,
as if you had never wasted or misapplied
a single moment in all your life.
You can turn over a new leaf every hour
if you choose.”
― Arnold Bennett

tags: faith, hope, new-beginnings, new-day, time

519 likes

“The proper, wise balancing of one's whole life may depend upon the feasibility of a cup of tea at an unusual hour.”
― Arnold Bennett, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day

tags: tea, time

90 likes

“Any change, even a change for the better is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.”
― Arnold Bennett

53 likes

See all Arnold Bennett's quotes »

Polls

Which classic work would you like to read with the "Reading for Pleasure group" during January and February 2019? Please vote here.

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

65 votes, 33.5%

Bleak House by Charles Dickens

49 votes, 25.3%

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

33 votes, 17.0%

If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin

21 votes, 10.8%

The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy

17 votes, 8.8%

Anna of the Five Towns by Arnold Bennett

9 votes, 4.6%

194 total votes

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Arnold Bennett’s Followers (322)

Arnold Bennett

Combine EditionsArnold Bennett’s books

Series by Arnold Bennett

Polls

Topics Mentioning This Author

Combine Editions
Arnold Bennett’s books