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The Five Towns #3
Tales of the Five Towns
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319 pages, Audio CD
First published January 1, 1905
About the author
Arnold Bennett
1,102 books322 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 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 29, 2012
What a find Arnold Bennett is! This book of short stories is humorous, poignant, gripping, and occasionally tragic. Bennett writes with charm and good humor, but his observations about human behavior and foibles are astute (and trenchant). He also casts a benevolent and understanding eye on all his characters: even the antagonists (one could scarcely call them villains) are shown to be acting out of ignorance or misunderstanding, or from plausible (if misguided) motives. Just as his characters aren't all good or all bad, his story endings don't go where the conventional set-ups seem to point. Instead they ring true with a stamp of life and character that marks Bennett as a true master. The final story in the collection, "A Letter Home," is brief but packs quite a wallop!
This edition of the book was a LibriVox, free audiobook. The reader, Martin Clifton, does a wonderful job in his presentation, allowing Bennett's humorous style to shine through.
This edition of the book was a LibriVox, free audiobook. The reader, Martin Clifton, does a wonderful job in his presentation, allowing Bennett's humorous style to shine through.
May 26, 2019
These stories made for good listening on Librivox, with Martin Clifton's narration. My favorites were "The Hungarian Rhapsody" and "Nocturne at the Majestic."
November 30, 2015
Bennett, Arnold. Tales of the Five Towns
Arnold Bennett is a great teller of tales about the Five Towns. He manages to create reader interest in ordinary people going abour their everyday lives. Of course there is usually something weird about the central character or characters, such as not speaking to each other for ten years like the Hessian brothers or being obsessed with getting rid of a valuable portrait like Sir Jehosohaphat Dain. In his stories, unlike his more celebrated novels, the plot is what creates reader interest. There is always a trick Bennett has up his sleeve to make you smile and one doesn’t question too closely motivation and the reader is led by the nose towards what seems the only possible conclusion. Good light and rather old-fashioned reading, with a four-square narrator always on hand to reassure and entertain you.
Arnold Bennett is a great teller of tales about the Five Towns. He manages to create reader interest in ordinary people going abour their everyday lives. Of course there is usually something weird about the central character or characters, such as not speaking to each other for ten years like the Hessian brothers or being obsessed with getting rid of a valuable portrait like Sir Jehosohaphat Dain. In his stories, unlike his more celebrated novels, the plot is what creates reader interest. There is always a trick Bennett has up his sleeve to make you smile and one doesn’t question too closely motivation and the reader is led by the nose towards what seems the only possible conclusion. Good light and rather old-fashioned reading, with a four-square narrator always on hand to reassure and entertain you.
September 2, 2025
This is a very fine collection of short stories. How can you resist a small town politician who buys a couple of geese? He had made a fortune we are told “in the good old times before Satan was ingenious enough to invent German competition”.
A man tries to hang himself but fails at first. Luckily the village idiot helps him. Who is the real idiot?
A young lady meets her father as an adult. And what is the result? “Foolish, simple Nina had achieved
the nec plus ultra of her languorous dreams.”
A man has an accident and believes that he is about to die. So he confesses to his wife the secret that has been weighing on his conscience. His father in law had asked him to sell some shares. Unfortunately, his clerk did not do so, and the shares started to rise in value. He did not tell his father-in-law or his wife, and kept the profit for himself. Quite an interesting moral problem. What he did not know was that the old man had in fact killed himself because of the cruelty of fate. Will his marriage survive this confession?
Are you a piano player and are you thinking of making a career out of it? Maybe you should read Clarice of the Autumn Concerts first.
My favorite story is called The Sisters Qita. I know it is foolish but I could not help thinking (and I do that very often when reading Bennett) that Virginia Woolf would not only have been incapable of writing such a magnificent tale she would have been unable to see the genius in it.
A man tries to hang himself but fails at first. Luckily the village idiot helps him. Who is the real idiot?
A young lady meets her father as an adult. And what is the result? “Foolish, simple Nina had achieved
the nec plus ultra of her languorous dreams.”
A man has an accident and believes that he is about to die. So he confesses to his wife the secret that has been weighing on his conscience. His father in law had asked him to sell some shares. Unfortunately, his clerk did not do so, and the shares started to rise in value. He did not tell his father-in-law or his wife, and kept the profit for himself. Quite an interesting moral problem. What he did not know was that the old man had in fact killed himself because of the cruelty of fate. Will his marriage survive this confession?
Are you a piano player and are you thinking of making a career out of it? Maybe you should read Clarice of the Autumn Concerts first.
My favorite story is called The Sisters Qita. I know it is foolish but I could not help thinking (and I do that very often when reading Bennett) that Virginia Woolf would not only have been incapable of writing such a magnificent tale she would have been unable to see the genius in it.
June 29, 2010
As I know the area well, the tales are of special interest and I have thoroughly enjoyed deciphering the place names such as Knype (Stoke), Oldcastle (Newcastle-under-Lyme) etc. The tales seem to delight in human nature, and often have a resonance in modern times.
January 15, 2016
Could he be a cynical, sometimes morose O. Henry? I must admit that a few of the stories didn't make sense to me - like a few Far Side or New Yorker cartoons - but the wit, humor, irony, and clever plot was always good.
My favorite book thus far by Bennett remains The Card.
My favorite book thus far by Bennett remains The Card.
December 17, 2015
This is a series of short stories set in the Staffordshire Potteries towns, peopled by a rich cast of businessmen, shopkeepers, mill and pottery owners and fading gentility.
Arnold Bennett was a very popular author in his day and these stories show why.
Arnold Bennett was a very popular author in his day and these stories show why.
October 23, 2014
Lovely tales from the author of Clayhanger.
September 2, 2020
I discovered Arnold Bennett through the Librivox recordings of the incomparable Andy Minter. After The Old Wives' Tale and The Card, which I will review separately sometime, I decided to check out the short stories collection. But I found this to be a bit of a drag. I wonder if he just isn't a short story guy. Some people require the long form genre to express themselves. With this collection, I found my mind wandering, and sometimes a story would end abruptly and another would start and I would barely notice. I listened to this as an audio book, and looking at the titles of the stories now, I can hardly remember what some of these were about. So, all in all, inoffensive but not a good way to get introduced to the author. If you want a good first read by Bennett, I would start with the Old Wives' Tale.
September 15, 2024
A beautiful set of stories. Really beautiful. Meaningful.
Variations on the theme of family, class, love, naivety, and the splendor of everyday life from a multitude of perspectives. Whether his intention or not, in this set of stores I felt a gradual move to more moody and poignant stores by the end. The final 'A Letter Home' and 'The Idiot' particularly affected me.
Variations on the theme of family, class, love, naivety, and the splendor of everyday life from a multitude of perspectives. Whether his intention or not, in this set of stores I felt a gradual move to more moody and poignant stores by the end. The final 'A Letter Home' and 'The Idiot' particularly affected me.
February 7, 2025
A fairly average short story collection, made slightly more interesting for me by virtue of being set where I live. Favourite stories were The Hungarian Rhapsody, Nocturne at the Majestic and A Feud.
December 30, 2024
3.5 I always enjoy Arnold Bennett, but am less a fan of this, a variety of tales, than his full novels.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews