Arnold Bennett

In the heart of Victorian England, Arnold Bennett's masterpiece, The Old Wives' Tale, weaves the captivating stories of the Baines sisters, Constance and Sophia. Born into the modest comfort of a draper's family in the provincial town of Bursley, their paths diverge wildly as they navigate through love, loss, ambition, and the relentless march of time. Constance, the steadfast elder, embraces the predictable rhythms of life within the bounds of their family shop, finding contentment in domesticity and familiar surroundings. Sophia, the spirited younger sister, breaks free from the constraints of provincial life, embarking on a thrilling, tumultuous journey that takes her far from home. Their tales crisscross the changing landscape of the nineteenth century, revealing the profound impacts of time and choice upon individual destinies. Arnold Bennett masterfully chronicles the ordinary and extraordinary events that shape the sisters' lives, offering a poignant, detailed portrait of Victorian England. The Old Wives' Tale is not just the story of Constance and Sophia; it is a powerful, timeless exploration of human nature, family bonds, and the surprising resilience of the female spirit.

""The Old Wives' Tale"" is a classic novel written by the British author Arnold Bennett, first published in 1908. Set in the Staffordshire Potteries, the narrative spans several decades and revolves around the lives of two sisters, Constance and Sophia Baines. The story delves deep into the complexities of human relationships, tracing the divergent paths of the two sisters as they navigate the challenges of love, family, and societal expectations. Through richly detailed storytelling, Bennett portrays the contrasting personalities of the sisters and their contrasting approaches to life. As they grapple with the rapidly changing world around them, the novel highlights themes of resilience, tradition, and the passage of time. With its insightful exploration of human nature and the impact of individual choices, ""The Old Wives' Tale"" remains a timeless literary work that offers a profound reflection on the human experience.

In the "great metropolitan industrial district" of East London, Riceyman Steps lead from King's Cross Road to Riceyman Square. Here in this busy neighborhood, Henry Earlforward, the proprietor of a secondhand bookstore, takes a keen interest in Violet Arb, the widowed owner of a nearby confectionary shop. The middle-aged shopkeepers marry, but their chance for late-in-life happiness is increasingly shadowed by Henry's compulsive miserliness. Violet slowly realizes that her husband views everyday necessities -- heating, electricity, even food -- as extravagances to be resisted through self-denial. Starved for love as well as physical nourishment, the couple's only hope for survival lies with Elsie, their maid, and her warm-hearted generosity. Winner of the 1924 James Tait Black Memorial Prize, England's oldest literary award, Riceyman Steps weaves an atmospheric re-creation of London's harsh post-World War I mood. Its powerful exploration of sexual hunger and repression, written simply and with a deceptively light ironic tone, offers a compelling story of alienation, thwarted passion, and obsession.

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What happens when a man who has everything falls desperately in love with a lowly shopgirl? That's the conundrum at the center of Arnold Bennett's novel Hugo. The eponymous protagonist is a titan of industry who is used to living a life of luxury and getting everything he wants-until Camilla rebuffs his advances. Throw in some creepy elements of Gothic horror, and it's an all-around engaging read.

These four stories embrace the lives of two very different sisters, Constance and Sophia Baines, following the narration from their youth, working in mothers' draper's shop, into old age. It is generally regarded as Bennett's finest works.

Literary Taste: How to Form it is a long essay by Arnold Bennett, first published in 1909, with a revised edition by his friend Frank Swinnerton appearing in 1937. Enoch Arnold Bennett (27 May 1867 - 27 March 1931) was an English writer. He is nowadays best known as a novelist, but he also worked in other fields such as the theatre, journalism, propaganda and film. Early life: Bennett was born in a modest house in Hanley in the Potteries district of Staffordshire. Hanley is one of a conurbation of six towns which were joined together at the beginning of the 20th century as Stoke-on-Trent. Enoch Bennett, his father, qualified as a solicitor in 1876, and the family moved to a larger house between Hanley and Burslem.Bennett was educated locally in Newcastle-under-Lyme. Bennett was employed by his father but the working relationship failed. He found himself doing jobs such as rent-collecting which were uncongenial. Bennett also resented the low pay; it is no accident that the theme of parental miserliness is important in his novels. In his spare time he was able to do a little journalism, but his breakthrough as a writer came after he had moved from the Potteries. At the age of 21, he left his father's practice and went to London as a solicitor's clerk. Career: Journalism and nonfiction: Bennett won a literary competition hosted by Tit-Bits magazine in 1889 and was encouraged to take up journalism full-time. In 1894, he became assistant editor of the periodical Woman. He noticed that the material offered by a syndicate to the magazine was not very good, so he wrote a serial which was bought by the syndicate for 75 (equivalent to 10,000 in 2015).He then wrote another. This became The Grand Babylon Hotel. Just over four years later, his first novel, A Man from the North, was published to critical acclaim and he became editor of the magazine. From 1900 he devoted himself full-time to writing, giving up the editorship. He continued to write journalism despite the success of his career as a novelist. In 1926, at the suggestion of Lord Beaverbrook, he began writing an influential weekly article on books for the Evening Standard newspaper. As well as the novels, much of Bennett's non-fiction work has stood the test of time. One of his most popular non-fiction works, which is still read to this day, is the self-help book How to Live on 24 Hours a Day. His diaries have yet to be published in full, but extracts from them are often quoted in the British press.

Henry Earlforward, a shabby Clerkenwell bookseller, has retired from life to devote himself (and his wife Violet) to a consuming passion for money. Miserliness becomes a fatal illness and Bennett gives a terrifying description of its ravages. But the book's horrible situation is saved through the character of Elsie - whose life-affirming refusal to engage with the nightmarish world of the bookseller transforms the story.Bennett wished in Riceyman Steps to create an English novel as powerful as anything by Balzac, the writer he most admired, with the same sense of great human issues being played out within the confines of a household. The result is an unforgettable work which is also a gripping description of the harsh, battered London of the period just after the First World War.

'Deeply moving, original, and dealing with material that I had never encountered in fiction, but only in life' Margaret DrabbleGrowing up in the world of the 'five towns' of industrial England, with their furnaces and chimneys, huddled red-brown streets, prayer meetings and small-minded bigotry, Anna is dominated by her miserly and tyrannical father. When she inherits a fortune and finds love, she struggles to break free from the constraints upon her, even though she is torn between duty and her deepest feelings. Arnold's novel of parental tyranny and rebellion is a portrayal of a woman of great spirit, complexity and integrity.

One of fiction's greatest chancers - the story of Denry Machin and his unceasing, ingenious efforts to become a great manSet in the raw, Victorian world of the 'Five Towns', The Card tells the extremely funny and tangled story of Denry Machin's rise from mediocrity to fame through a series of ludicrous and yet perversely successful schemes. He dances, pleads, cheats and inspires his way through life in a series of set-pieces which wonderfully evoke a now long-gone world of civic balls, seaside excursions, newspaper boys and patent chocolate remedies. As everybody said after one of his most stylish coups, Denry 'was not simply a card; he was the card.'

A long-neglected twentieth century masterpiece about the lives of two sisters, spanning seventy years of hte nineteenth century form Northern England to Paris. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY SATHNAM SANGHERA. You might find it hard to imagine that those stout ageing spinsters living quietly in small English towns ever led lives of passion or hardship, that they ever possessed beauty or romantic ideals. In "The Old Wives' Tale," Arnold Bennett tells the story of two such old wives, sisters Constance and Sophia, from youth, through marriage, heartbreak, triumphs and disasters, to old age. In doing so, he reveals with careful compassion the intense inner lives that throb beneath every seemingly insignificant exterior."