The Loot of Cities

by Arnold Bennett

This is the only volume of detective short stories by the great English author, Arnold Bennett. First published in Windsor Magazine in 1903, these stories were later gathered into a slim volume in England. This present edition marks their first appearance in the United States.Cecil Thorold, the detective, is a millionaire "in search of joy", as the sub title states. He employs unorthodox methods to gain his ends -- he blackmails to expose a criminal, and so on. These little stories are of special interest to collectors and to the many followers of Arnold Bennett, as it is not only the least known of his books but also a fine example of the detective story of the day.

Genres: Mystery, Literature

156 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1905

About the author

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.

Reviews

[Liedzeit Liedzeit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arnold Bennett writing mystery stories. How bad can they be? Not at all, of course.

An American millionaire, Cecil Thorold, involves himself in crimes. He does not really solve them, also he also does that. He mainly goes in for the fun of it. In the best one, he is selling tickets for the Opera on the Black market himself. And when he is denied entrance on the ground, that the ticket is not valid, he is prepared. Because the prima donna happens to be an acquaintance. And she just does not show up. Until he gets her. Some blackmail there. And she gets an expensive necklace as payment.

In another story, he stops a guy from getting away with 50000 pounds. The money though is not returned to the rightful owners. He burns it. Because, you see, owners are criminals themselves (bankers and investors). That is the man he is. He really would have kept the money but he needed to impress a lady journalist. This lady eventually gets married in the last story. Fun.

Ellery Queen, so I read, lists it under the 100 most important of the genre. Hm, if that is true, the genre cannot have produced really excellent stuff. I assume it is considered important because it is an early example of the "dilettante detective". The book was published in 1917.

There are also a couple of non-Cecil stories that are actually better. There is a touch of Wodehouse here. The best one is about a doctor who is called into a hotel (Babylon, of course) where he is supposed to unwittingly help to murder an heiress. The ruthless friend of the victim gets married by him at the end.

[Jeff Hobbs · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read so far:

The fire of London--3
A comedy on the Gold Coast--3
A bracelet at Bruges--3
A solution of the Algiers mystery--2
In the capital of the Sahara--3
"Lo! 'Twas a gala night!"--

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: several short stories by Bennett. It made Ellery Queen's Quorum, the 125 Most Important Detective-Crime Fiction Books.