Arnold Bennett

Are you really 'living', or just existing? Do you want to improve yourself or just continue to muddle through? Do you use the time given you each day, or just throw most of it away? These questions Bennett asks each of us and for those who want to really live and learn, offers very valuable advice. Time is the most precious of commodities, states Bennett in this book. Many books have been written on how to live on a certain amount of money each day....

The book consists of four volumes containing coming of age novels set in the Midlands of Victorian England. The story follows Edwin Clayhanger as he leaves school, takes over the family business, and falls in love. The second novel Hilda Lessways tells the story from her coming of age, her working experiences as a shorthand clerk and keeper of a lodging house in London and Brighton. These Twain, the third in the Clayhanger series, chronicles the married...

In the Five Towns human nature is reported to be so hard that you can break stones on it. Yet sometimes it softens, and then we have one of our rare idylls of which we are very proud, while pretending not to be. The soft and delicate South would possibly not esteem highly our idylls, as such. Nevertheless they are our idylls, idyllic for us, and reminding us, by certain symptoms, that though we never cry there is concealed somewhere within our bodies...

First published in 1907, The Ghost was the first of many "fantasias on modern times" written by Arnold Bennett. These illustrated his ability to produce not only realistic novels, perfected in his portrayals of provincial English life set in the Staffordshire scenery of his childhood, but also more sensational stories, written after his move to London where he developed a far more cosmopolitan interest. A supernatural story, The Ghost tells the tale...

The second novel in the Clayhanger series, Hilda Lessways (1911) is told from the point of view of Edwin's Clayhanger's wife, Hilda. It describes her coming of age, her work as a shorthand clerk and in a lodging house in London and Brighton, her relationship with George Cannon, which ends in a pregnancy, and finally her reconciliation with Edwin.

Arthur Prohack is a Treasury official admired and feared by people at all levels of government. At home, he is affection itself to his quiet, ever-anxious wife, Marian, and to their two grown children. Drama unfolds with arrival of debtor whose loan Mr. Prohack had long ago written off. In this satirical work Arnold Bennett exposes the boundaries between the English middle and upper classes and the corrosive effects of too much money.

When American millionaire Theodore Racksole and his twenty-three-year-old daughter Nella stumble upon The Grand Babylon Hotel, an exclusive London establishment, they are so struck by the fascinating building that Theodore decides to purchase it. But soon a criminal conspiracy arises that endangers that purchase, and Theodore and Nella must turn detective to protect it.

Scathingly reviewed by some at the time of its publication in 1903 because of its subject matter, Bennett's third novel, Leonora, is the love story of a middle-aged woman. In response to his critics, Bennett later recorded in his preface to The Old Wives Tale, that he intended the book to be a protest against the "absurd youthfulness, the unfading youthfulness of the average heroine."

Published in 1905, Tales of the Five Towns collects a dozen stories, divided into two sections: "At Home" and "Abroad." The eight "At Home" tales take place in Bennett's beloved Five Towns, a location based on the Potteries district of Staffordshire, where he spent his early years. "Abroad" contains four stories which, though taking place in London, still have characters connected with the Potteries. All of the tales depict the industrial and social...