Arnold Bennett’s Followers (309)

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 · 25,497 ratings · 3,084 reviews · 924 distinct works • Similar authors

	How to Live on 24 Hours a Day 3.62 avg rating — 9,318 ratings — published 1908 — 874 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 — 4,769 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
	Anna of the Five Towns (The Five Towns #2) 3.68 avg rating — 1,831 ratings — published 1902 — 292 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 — 1,574 ratings — published 1902 — 328 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) 3.88 avg rating — 733 ratings — published 1911 — 256 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
	Buried Alive 3.77 avg rating — 676 ratings — published 1908 — 153 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 — 522 ratings — published 1910	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: A Novel 3.89 avg rating — 461 ratings — published 1923 — 565 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 — 522 ratings — published 1909 — 170 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 3.80 avg rating — 357 ratings — published 1908 — 232 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 — 8,821 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

516 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

What work of fiction would you like the group to read in May 2017?

Darkness Falls from the Air by Nigel Balchin

5 votes, 41.7%

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

3 votes, 25.0%

Anna of the Five Towns by Arnold Bennett

2 votes, 16.7%

The Camomile Lawn by Mary Wesley

1 vote, 8.3%

How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn

1 vote, 8.3%

12 total votes

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Arnold Bennett’s Followers (309)

Arnold Bennett

Combine EditionsArnold Bennett’s books

Series by Arnold Bennett

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Topics Mentioning This Author

Combine Editions
Arnold Bennett’s books