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The Regent: A Five Towns story of adventure in London
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
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First published January 1, 1913
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About the author
Arnold Bennett
959 books311 followersEnoch 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.
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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Displaying 1 - 10 of 11 reviews
August 8, 2018
The sequel to The Card (see my review HERE), but not as good. In this story, Edward Henry leaves Bursley to found a London theatre, and once that storyline takes over, the book lost impetus and, for me, interest.
Still a "Card"?
Edward Henry (now too grand to be Denry) is a self-made success in the Midlands, and relishes his reputation as a bit of a card ("but without quite convincing the surveyor of taxes that he was an honest man"). He has money, charm and ingenuity, but no taste, developing his musical preferences "unprejudiced by tradition" and designing his home with "his talent for the ingenious organisation of comfort, and his utter indifference to aesthetic beauty".
Family
His mother lives in the house, along with his wife and children. She "existed in their home like a philosophic prisoner of war at the court of conquerors, behaving faultlessly... but never renouncing her soul's secret independence nor permitting herself to forget she was on foreign ground". The eldest child, Robert, is a smart-alec who, when given unsolicited advice, says "I know", but when asked for information, says "I don't know". In this volume, Edward Henry also has a new catchphrase "You'd almost think so, wouldn't you?", though this is forgotten once he gets to London. These characters and relationships are the best aspect of the book.
Outsider, still?
Despite his wealth and influence (he is an alderman and former mayor), "Like many very eminent men, he was not to any degree in anybody's set". Unfortunately, "Money had become futile for him. 'I want a change'", and hence the London episodes begin.
Compared with Part 1
Initially, the book survives the transition; there are some perceptive and often amusing incidents when Edward Henry first stays there. "The elect desired nothing but their own privileged society in order to be happy in a hotel" - very different from all the mod cons Edward Henry had at home. This leads to a very funny section where he bluffs his way to a very elite hotel and tries to fit in, engaging a valet (and inventing an implausible excuse as to why his is not there) and buying new clothes and luggage, all for a bet - just as his dance with the Countess of Chell had been, may years earlier.
As the theatre plans firm up, there is too much detail of the legalities of contracts, the temperament of actresses and the daily problems of founding and running a theatre. I finished the book in the hope it would return to form. Unfortunately, it didn't.
Still a "Card"?
Edward Henry (now too grand to be Denry) is a self-made success in the Midlands, and relishes his reputation as a bit of a card ("but without quite convincing the surveyor of taxes that he was an honest man"). He has money, charm and ingenuity, but no taste, developing his musical preferences "unprejudiced by tradition" and designing his home with "his talent for the ingenious organisation of comfort, and his utter indifference to aesthetic beauty".
Family
His mother lives in the house, along with his wife and children. She "existed in their home like a philosophic prisoner of war at the court of conquerors, behaving faultlessly... but never renouncing her soul's secret independence nor permitting herself to forget she was on foreign ground". The eldest child, Robert, is a smart-alec who, when given unsolicited advice, says "I know", but when asked for information, says "I don't know". In this volume, Edward Henry also has a new catchphrase "You'd almost think so, wouldn't you?", though this is forgotten once he gets to London. These characters and relationships are the best aspect of the book.
Outsider, still?
Despite his wealth and influence (he is an alderman and former mayor), "Like many very eminent men, he was not to any degree in anybody's set". Unfortunately, "Money had become futile for him. 'I want a change'", and hence the London episodes begin.
Compared with Part 1
Initially, the book survives the transition; there are some perceptive and often amusing incidents when Edward Henry first stays there. "The elect desired nothing but their own privileged society in order to be happy in a hotel" - very different from all the mod cons Edward Henry had at home. This leads to a very funny section where he bluffs his way to a very elite hotel and tries to fit in, engaging a valet (and inventing an implausible excuse as to why his is not there) and buying new clothes and luggage, all for a bet - just as his dance with the Countess of Chell had been, may years earlier.
As the theatre plans firm up, there is too much detail of the legalities of contracts, the temperament of actresses and the daily problems of founding and running a theatre. I finished the book in the hope it would return to form. Unfortunately, it didn't.
Read
July 2, 2018Not one of Bennett's best but still a lot of fun. Denry Machin from The Card: A Story of Adventure in the Five Towns is back, older, with kids, getting a bit respectable and needing adventure, so this is Denry taking on London theatrical society. It's an affectionate satire--Bennett may set up strawmen but he's always got an eye for humanity, and treats flaws with kindnes,s and there are, as ever, these lightning-flashes of insight, single lines that illuminate the truths and contradictions of a marriage, for example, more concisely and truthfully than all 400pp of the usual 'portrait of a marriage' litfic novel. Denry's Midlands-boy getting-away-with-it antics are a bit of Mary Sue, but then Bennett obviously has issues with the capitalist social system even while he and Denry roll gleefully around in the cash.
I love his delving into grand Edwardian hotels and I now want to write an Edwardian hotel romance. *And* I want to go back and reread all of Bennett. This always happens.
I love his delving into grand Edwardian hotels and I now want to write an Edwardian hotel romance. *And* I want to go back and reread all of Bennett. This always happens.
May 13, 2014
Listened to audiobook free from Librivox. Andy Minter is a wonderful British narrator who brings characters to life with humor. This sequel to The Card is not as funny or clever but is still worth the read and a pleasant diversion from TV and modern day predictable sitcoms and movie rom-coms. Love the part about him trying to see if he can get into a very elite hotel on a bet.
March 19, 2014
Leisurely read. I liked coming back to the book and checking out what Machin is up to.
It's not a book to spell-bind you, but an ongoing pleasant distraction for sure. Bennett's humor never fails to amuse.
It's not a book to spell-bind you, but an ongoing pleasant distraction for sure. Bennett's humor never fails to amuse.
August 7, 2016
The first few chapters of this made me think I was in for another total joy like 'The Card', the story of Edward Henry's earlier life, but once he'd gone to London and got amongst the theatre crowd then it began to tail off a little. He really belongs in The Five Towns, as he himself acknowledges.
December 1, 2013
A view of the privileged classes of Stoke-on-Trent during Victorian Times.
September 26, 2023
The Card of The Five Towns' midlife crisis.
June 16, 2023
The hero of The Card, Denry Machin, returns. He is 43 now beginning to loose his hair.
The book starts promising with a little accident in his house. The dog has bitten his eldest son. Mother insists on his calling a doctor. And so he does. Because he meets him in a dancehall he has fled to.
The main story is about him founding a theatre. The Regent. Because he dislikes his boring situation. All very funny. But not really exciting. Some satire on the intellectual theatre scene that is not really exciting. The humor is not in the story. But it is nice just sensing that Bennett obviously had fun writing this.
Of course he gets attracted by a young actress called Elsie April. And now something magnificent happens. Before returning to London and temptation he asks his wife to join him on the trip. She declines. So does the son. What is he going to do? Spoiler: he forces them to accompany him and introduces wife and three kids and nurse to the actress. Beautiful.
7/10
The book starts promising with a little accident in his house. The dog has bitten his eldest son. Mother insists on his calling a doctor. And so he does. Because he meets him in a dancehall he has fled to.
The main story is about him founding a theatre. The Regent. Because he dislikes his boring situation. All very funny. But not really exciting. Some satire on the intellectual theatre scene that is not really exciting. The humor is not in the story. But it is nice just sensing that Bennett obviously had fun writing this.
Of course he gets attracted by a young actress called Elsie April. And now something magnificent happens. Before returning to London and temptation he asks his wife to join him on the trip. She declines. So does the son. What is he going to do? Spoiler: he forces them to accompany him and introduces wife and three kids and nurse to the actress. Beautiful.
7/10
August 13, 2021
By the time an author is famous enough and comfortable enough to know the theater world well, he seems to have nothing interesting or funny to say. Arnold Bennett appears to be no exception to this rule. I was excited for another take on the picaresque tale of Denry the Card, but this story did not really hold my interest. When the setting was changed to London after the initial scene in Bursley, the momentum started running out of the story fairly fast. The middle sagged, and the end was not memorable. No more theatrical farces for me.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 11 reviews