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The poor man, by Stella Benson. 1923 [Leather Bound]
Leather Binding on Spine and Corners with Golden Leaf Printing on round Spine (extra customization on request like complete leather, Golden Screen printing in Front, Color Leather, Colored book etc.) Reprinted in 2022 with the help of original edition published long back [1923]. This book is printed in black & white, sewing binding for longer life, Printed on high quality Paper, re-sized as per Current standards, professionally processed without changing its contents. As these are old books, we processed each page manually and make them readable but in some cases some pages which are blur or missing or black spots. If it is multi volume set, then it is only single volume, if you wish to order a specific or all the volumes you may contact us. We expect that you will understand our compulsion in these books. We found this book important for the readers who want to know more about our old treasure so we brought it back to the shelves. Hope you will like it and give your comments and suggestions. - English, Pages 270. EXTRA 10 DAYS APART FROM THE NORMAL SHIPPING PERIOD WILL BE REQUIRED FOR LEATHER BOUND BOOKS. COMPLETE LEATHER WILL COST YOU EXTRA US$ 25 APART FROM THE LEATHER BOUND BOOKS. {FOLIO EDITION IS ALSO AVAILABLE.} Complete The poor man, by Stella Benson. 1923 Benson, Stella, -.
- GenresClassics
270 pages, Leather Bound
First published January 1, 1922
2 people are currently reading
37 people want to read
About the author
Stella Benson
51 books34 followersStella Benson (1892-1933) was an English feminist, travel writer and novelist. Stella was often ill during her childhood. By her sixth birthday, she and her family, based in London, had moved frequently. She spent some of her childhood in Germany and Switzerland getting an education. She began writing a diary at the age of ten and kept it up for all of her life. By the time she was writing poetry, around the age of fourteen, her mother left her father; consequently, she saw her father infrequently. When she did see him, he encouraged her to quit writing poetry for the time being, until she was older and more experienced. Instead, Stella increased her writing output, adding novel-writing to her repertoire.
Stella was noted for being compassionate and interested in social issues. Like her older female relatives, she supported women's suffrage. During World War I, she supported the troops by gardening and by helping poor women in London's East End at the Charity Organisation Society. These efforts inspired Benson to write the novels I Pose (1915), This Is the End (1917) and Living Alone (1919). She also published her first volume of poetry, Twenty, in 1918.
Benson's writings kept coming, but none of her works is well known today. Pipers and a Dancer (1924) and Goodbye, Stranger (1926) were followed by another book of travel essays, Worlds Within Worlds, and the story The Man Who Missed the 'Bus in 1928. Her most famous work, the novel The Far-Away Bride, was published in the United States first in 1930 and as Tobit Transplanted in Britain in 1931. It won the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize. This was followed by two limited edition collections of short stories, Hope Against Hope (1931) and Christmas Formula (1932).
She died of pneumonia just before her forty-first birthday in December 1933, in the Vietnamese province of Tonkin. Her last unfinished novel Mundos and her personal selection of her best poetry, Poems, were published posthumously in 1935. Her Collected Stories were published in 1936. Anderson's sons from his second marriage were Benedict Anderson and Perry Anderson.
Stella was noted for being compassionate and interested in social issues. Like her older female relatives, she supported women's suffrage. During World War I, she supported the troops by gardening and by helping poor women in London's East End at the Charity Organisation Society. These efforts inspired Benson to write the novels I Pose (1915), This Is the End (1917) and Living Alone (1919). She also published her first volume of poetry, Twenty, in 1918.
Benson's writings kept coming, but none of her works is well known today. Pipers and a Dancer (1924) and Goodbye, Stranger (1926) were followed by another book of travel essays, Worlds Within Worlds, and the story The Man Who Missed the 'Bus in 1928. Her most famous work, the novel The Far-Away Bride, was published in the United States first in 1930 and as Tobit Transplanted in Britain in 1931. It won the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize. This was followed by two limited edition collections of short stories, Hope Against Hope (1931) and Christmas Formula (1932).
She died of pneumonia just before her forty-first birthday in December 1933, in the Vietnamese province of Tonkin. Her last unfinished novel Mundos and her personal selection of her best poetry, Poems, were published posthumously in 1935. Her Collected Stories were published in 1936. Anderson's sons from his second marriage were Benedict Anderson and Perry Anderson.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 3, 2019
Five years ago, when I read Stella Benson’s first novel, I wrote:
"I don’t know what Stella Benson did, I don’t know how she did it, but she did it quite brilliantly.
I don’t want to – I don’t need to – pull her book apart to see how it works. I just want to wonder at it, to be impressed that it does!
And now, of course, I want to read everything else that she ever wrote!"
It shouldn’t have taken me so long to read another book, but I didn’t have one to hand and I was distracted by other books, until The Man of the House came home with a copy of The Poor Man that he had picked up for me.
Edward R Williams is the poor man of the title, an Englishman who was alone in the world since the death of his brother, who was socially awkward and a little deaf, and who was in the slightly position of having enough money to not need to work but no more than that.
He had settled in San Francisco and fallen in with an arty set. Rhoda Romero, Avery Bird, Banner Hope and Melsie Stone Ponting had no great love for Edward, they didn’t really understand who he was and why he was always around, but they were so self-important and so caught up in their own concerns that they didn’t think to question his presence.
Emily Frere was the assistant of the famous journalist Tam McTab and she travelled the world with him and his wife. Edward met her at a party and he was utterly smitten. She was everything that he wasn’t; she was bright, she was sociable, she was emphatic and she loved life.
Edward adored Emily and he was sure that she cared for him; because she listened, because she was always kind.
The elements of this story are beautifully balanced – the satire of the arty set, the tragicomedy of Edward, and the vitality of Emily – and the author’s voice was perfect. It was distinctive, she had a lovely turn of phrase, she had a sharp eye, and it was clear that she knew and was fond of San Francisco; though it was obvious that she was fonder of the surrounding countryside than the city itself.
Californians have brought suburb-making almost to an art. Their cities and their countryside are equally suburban. No one has a country house in California; no one has a city house. It is good to see trees from city windows, but it is not so good to see houses from country windows. This however, for better or for worse, seems to be California’s ideal, and she will not rest until she has finished turning herself into one long and lovely Lower Tooting.
When Edward learned that that Emily had travelled to China with the McTabs he knew that he had to follow them. He lacked the means to make such a journey, and so he set about earning a his passage. It was clear from the start that Edward was not cut out to be a salesman, but his brief career in sales did result in him being propelled to China. He fell into another job, teaching English, but he wasn’t cut out for that either.
Stella Benson walked the line between tragedy and comedy beautifully, and somehow she drew me into the story of this desperately poor man.
Would he find Emily?
What would happen if he did?
What would happen if he didn’t?
I can’t say, but I can say that the end of the story both powerful and inevitable.
I loved the way that Stella Benson illuminated very real human lives and situations in this unlikely tale, and that though the arc of the story was improbable every moment in it rang true.
This book came seven years after the other book of hers that I have read, and it lacks that books whimsicality but it has other things that more than make up for that. It has wisdom, it has clarity, and it has something to say.
The writing is wonderfully vivid, few other authors could have made the story of this poor man so compelling, and I can’t think of any author who could have told this story so very well.
"I don’t know what Stella Benson did, I don’t know how she did it, but she did it quite brilliantly.
I don’t want to – I don’t need to – pull her book apart to see how it works. I just want to wonder at it, to be impressed that it does!
And now, of course, I want to read everything else that she ever wrote!"
It shouldn’t have taken me so long to read another book, but I didn’t have one to hand and I was distracted by other books, until The Man of the House came home with a copy of The Poor Man that he had picked up for me.
Edward R Williams is the poor man of the title, an Englishman who was alone in the world since the death of his brother, who was socially awkward and a little deaf, and who was in the slightly position of having enough money to not need to work but no more than that.
He had settled in San Francisco and fallen in with an arty set. Rhoda Romero, Avery Bird, Banner Hope and Melsie Stone Ponting had no great love for Edward, they didn’t really understand who he was and why he was always around, but they were so self-important and so caught up in their own concerns that they didn’t think to question his presence.
Emily Frere was the assistant of the famous journalist Tam McTab and she travelled the world with him and his wife. Edward met her at a party and he was utterly smitten. She was everything that he wasn’t; she was bright, she was sociable, she was emphatic and she loved life.
Edward adored Emily and he was sure that she cared for him; because she listened, because she was always kind.
The elements of this story are beautifully balanced – the satire of the arty set, the tragicomedy of Edward, and the vitality of Emily – and the author’s voice was perfect. It was distinctive, she had a lovely turn of phrase, she had a sharp eye, and it was clear that she knew and was fond of San Francisco; though it was obvious that she was fonder of the surrounding countryside than the city itself.
Californians have brought suburb-making almost to an art. Their cities and their countryside are equally suburban. No one has a country house in California; no one has a city house. It is good to see trees from city windows, but it is not so good to see houses from country windows. This however, for better or for worse, seems to be California’s ideal, and she will not rest until she has finished turning herself into one long and lovely Lower Tooting.
When Edward learned that that Emily had travelled to China with the McTabs he knew that he had to follow them. He lacked the means to make such a journey, and so he set about earning a his passage. It was clear from the start that Edward was not cut out to be a salesman, but his brief career in sales did result in him being propelled to China. He fell into another job, teaching English, but he wasn’t cut out for that either.
Stella Benson walked the line between tragedy and comedy beautifully, and somehow she drew me into the story of this desperately poor man.
Would he find Emily?
What would happen if he did?
What would happen if he didn’t?
I can’t say, but I can say that the end of the story both powerful and inevitable.
I loved the way that Stella Benson illuminated very real human lives and situations in this unlikely tale, and that though the arc of the story was improbable every moment in it rang true.
This book came seven years after the other book of hers that I have read, and it lacks that books whimsicality but it has other things that more than make up for that. It has wisdom, it has clarity, and it has something to say.
The writing is wonderfully vivid, few other authors could have made the story of this poor man so compelling, and I can’t think of any author who could have told this story so very well.
July 31, 2024
A tragicomic work that otherwise is difficult to pigeonhole, this making it especially interesting to me. The "poor man" is Edward Williams, a simpering Englishman who finds himself among a well to do crowd of San Franciscan art hobnobbers. That's the first half of the story, along with a trip to Yosemite, where the out of place Edward falls in love with Emily. Jealous, repressed, and awkward at every turn, Edward is laid low by a sinus infection and surgery for same. In the meantime, Emily takes off with Tam and Lucy McTab for China. Edward takes up the trail, only to discover that finding Emily in China is difficult, because Edward doesn't know Emily's last name.
Edward is both comic and sad. His adventures single minded and therefore bloody-minded in his pursuit. All his pretensions collapse around his drunkenness, his obsequious smiles, and his willingness to rationalize every moral failure as justifiable due to the faults of others. It's the English that Stella Benson puts in the crosshairs, here, but Americans aren't far behind, especially the wretched child, Stone Ponting. Rhoda Romero (these names!) and her pose as a political radical, while living off a mint of money is no less revealing.
In China, the action moves from the drawing room and fancied up parties to battling warlords and armies. McTab and Edward find themselves under fire before undeservedly escaping trouble. But that is how Edward's life always seems to go. He's such a cypher that no one notices him, no one cares. Then, there is Emily. Homewrecker. Hysteric. Flibbertigibbet. She and Edward deserve each other. After a fashion, they find themselves together. What a nightmare.
Stella Benson seems worth looking into further. Talented style. Wicked wit. And a surprising amount pace to her story. I read this one because it is on my list of China novels from the twenties and thirties. A pity Benson has fallen into absolute anonymity.
Edward is both comic and sad. His adventures single minded and therefore bloody-minded in his pursuit. All his pretensions collapse around his drunkenness, his obsequious smiles, and his willingness to rationalize every moral failure as justifiable due to the faults of others. It's the English that Stella Benson puts in the crosshairs, here, but Americans aren't far behind, especially the wretched child, Stone Ponting. Rhoda Romero (these names!) and her pose as a political radical, while living off a mint of money is no less revealing.
In China, the action moves from the drawing room and fancied up parties to battling warlords and armies. McTab and Edward find themselves under fire before undeservedly escaping trouble. But that is how Edward's life always seems to go. He's such a cypher that no one notices him, no one cares. Then, there is Emily. Homewrecker. Hysteric. Flibbertigibbet. She and Edward deserve each other. After a fashion, they find themselves together. What a nightmare.
Stella Benson seems worth looking into further. Talented style. Wicked wit. And a surprising amount pace to her story. I read this one because it is on my list of China novels from the twenties and thirties. A pity Benson has fallen into absolute anonymity.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews