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Arnold Bennett was a prolific British writer who penned dozens of works across all genres, from adventurous fiction to propaganda and nonfiction. He wrote plays like Judith and historical novels like Tales of the Five Towns.
Arnold Bennett was a prolific British writer who penned dozens of works across all genres, from adventurous fiction to propaganda and nonfiction. He wrote plays like Judith and historical novels like Tales of the Five Towns.
In the pupils' room of the offices of Lucas & Enwright, architects, Russell Square, Bloomsbury, George Edwin Cannon, an articled pupil, leaned over a large drawing-board and looked up at Mr. Enwright, the head of the firm, who with cigarette and stick was on his way out after what he called a good day's work. It was past six o'clock on an evening in early July 1901. To George's right was an open door leading to the principals' room, and to his left another open door leading to more rooms and to the staircase.
The lofty chambers were full of lassitude; but round about George, who was working late, there floated the tonic vapour of conscious virtue. Haim, the factotum, could be seen and heard moving in his cubicle which guarded the offices from the stairs. In the rooms shortly to be deserted and locked up, and in the decline of the day, the three men were drawn together like survivors.
"I gather you're going to change your abode," said Mr. Enwright, having stopped.
"Did Mr. Orgreave tell you, then?" George asked.
"Well, he didn't exactly tell me...."
John Orgreave was Mr. Enwright's junior partner; and for nearly two years, since his advent in London from the Five Towns, George had lived with Mr. and Mrs. Orgreave at Bedford Park. The Orgreaves, too, sprang from the Five Towns. John's people and George's people were closely entwined in the local annals.
Pupil and principal glanced discreetly at one another, exchanging in silence vague, malicious, unutterable critical verdicts upon both John Orgreave and his wife.
"Well, I am!" said George at length.
"Where are you going to?"
"Haven't settled a bit," said George. "I wish I could live in Paris."
"Paris wouldn't be much good to you yet," Mr. Enwright laughed benevolently.
"I suppose it wouldn't. Besides, of course--"
George spoke in a tone of candid deferential acceptance, which flattered Mr. Enwright very much, for it was the final proof of the prestige which the grizzled and wrinkled and peculiar Fellow and Member of the Council of the Royal Institute of British Architects had acquired in the estimation of that extremely independent, tossing sprig, George Edwin Cannon. Mr. Enwright had recently been paying a visit to Paris, and George had been sitting for the Intermediate Examination. "You can join me here for a few days after the exam., if you care to," Mr. Enwright had sent over. It was George's introduction to the Continent, and the circumstances of it were almost ideal. For a week the deeply experienced connoisseur of all the arts had had the fine, eager, responsive virgin mind in his power. Day after day he had watched and guided it amid entirely new sensations. Never had Mr. Enwright enjoyed himself more purely, and at the close he knew with satisfaction that he had put Paris in a proper perspective for George, and perhaps saved the youth from years of groping misapprehension. As for George, all his preconceived notions about Paris had been destroyed or shaken. In the quadrangles of the Louvre, for example, Mr. Enwright, pointing to the under part of the stone bench that foots so much of the walls, had said: "Look at that curve." Nothing else. No ecstasies about the sculptures of Jean Goujon and Carpeaux, or about the marvellous harmony of the East facade! But a flick of the cane towards the half-hidden moulding! And George had felt with a thrill what an exquisite curve and what an original curve and what a modest curve that curve was. Suddenly and magically his eyes had been opened. Or it might have been that a deceitful mist had rolled away and the real Louvre been revealed in its esoteric and sole authentic beauty....
"Why don't you try Chelsea?" said Mr. Enwright over his shoulder, proceeding towards the stairs.
"I was thinking of Chelsea."
" You were!" Mr. Enwright halted again for an instant. "It's the only place in London where the structure of society is anything like Paris. Why, dash it, in the King's Road the grocers know each other's business!" Mr. Enwright made the last strange remark to the outer door, and vanished.
"Funny cove!" George commented tolerantly to Mr. Haim, who passed through the room immediately afterwards to his nightly task of collecting and inspecting the scattered instruments on the principal's august drawing-board.
But Mr. Haim, though possibly he smiled ever so little, would not compromise himself by an endorsement of the criticism of his employer. George was a mere incident in the eternal career of Mr. Haim at Lucas & Enwright's.
When the factotum came back into the pupils' room, George stood up straight and smoothed his trousers and gazed admiringly at his elegant bright socks.
"Let me see," said George in a very friendly manner. " You live somewhere in Chelsea, don't you?"
"Yes," answered Mr. Haim.
"Whereabouts, if it isn't a rude question?"
"Well," said Mr. Haim, confidentially and benignantly, captivated by George's youthful charm, "it's near the Redcliffe Arms." He mentioned the Redcliffe Arms as he might have mentioned the Bank, Piccadilly Circus, or Gibraltar. "Alexandra Grove. No. 8. To tell you the truth, I own the house."
"The deuce you do!"
"Yes. The leasehold, that is, of course. No freeholds knocking about loose in that district!"
George saw a new and unsuspected Mr. Haim. He was impressed. And he was glad that he had never broken the office tradition of treating Mr. Haim with a respect not usually accorded to factotums. He saw a property-owner, a tax-payer, and a human being behind the spectacles of the shuffling, rather shabby, ceremonious familiar that pervaded those rooms daily from before ten till after six. He grew curious about a living phenomenon that hitherto had never awakened his curiosity.
"Were you really looking for accommodation?" demanded Mr. Haim suavely.
George hesitated. "Yes."
"Perhaps I have something that might suit you."
Events, disguised as mere words, seemed to George to be pushing him forward.
" I should like to have a look at it," he said. He had to say it; there was no alternative.
Mr. Haim raised a hand. "Any evening that happens to be convenient."
"What about to-night, then?"
"Certainly," Mr. Haim agreed. For a moment George apprehended that Mr. Haim was going to invite him to dinner. But Mr. Haim was not going to invite him to dinner. "About nine, shall we say?" he suggested, with a courtliness softer even than usual.
Later, George said that he would lock up the office himself and leave the key with the housekeeper.
"You can't miss the place," said Mr. Haim on leaving. "It's between the Workhouse and the Redcliffe."
A Great Man (1904), which Bennett subtitled "A Frolic," gives his humorous talent full rein. The novel is a hilarious character study of Henry Shakespeare Knight from his humble beginnings to his assent to the pinnacle of fame as a popular writer.
Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) was a prolific British writer and journalist. Bennett is popular for fiction such as The Old Wives' Tale and also for non-fiction works such as How to Live on 24 Hours a Day and Mental Efficiency. This edition of The Old Adam: A Story of Adventure includes a table of contents.
Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) was a prolific British writer and journalist. Bennett is popular for fiction such as The Old Wives' Tale and also for non-fiction works such as How to Live on 24 Hours a Day and Mental Efficiency. This edition of The Ghost: A Modern Fantasy includes a table of contents.
Arnold Bennett was a prolific British writer who penned dozens of works across all genres, from adventurous fiction to propaganda and nonfiction. He wrote plays like Judith and historical novels like Tales of the Five Towns.
Dodo Collections brings you another classic from Arnold Bennett, '"Denry the Audacious."' Like many of Arnold Bennett's works of fiction, the comic novel Denry the Audacious is set among the quaint village lanes of the Potteries District of Staffordshire. It is amidst this humble environment that the one-of-a-kind character Edward Henry Machin emerges from poverty and, largely through the force of his own indomitable will, achieves a measure of power and influence. Enoch Arnold Bennett (always known as Arnold Bennett) was one of the most remarkable literary figures of his time, a product of the English Potteries that he made famous as the Five Towns. Yet he could hardly wait to escape his home town, and he did so by the sheer force of his ambition to succeed as an author. In his time he turned his hand to every kind of writing, but he will be remembered for such novels as The Old Wives' Tale, the Clayhanger trilogy (Clayhanger, Hilda Lessways, and These Twain), and The Card. He also wrote such intriguing self-improvement books as Literary Taste, How To Live on 24 Hours a Day, The Human Machine, etc. After a local education Bennett finished his education at the University of London and for a time was editor of Woman magazine. After 1900 he devoted himself entirely to writing; dramatic criticism was one of his foremost interests. Bennett is best known, however, for his novels, several of which were written during his residence in France. Bennett's infancy was spent in genteel poverty, which gave way to prosperity as his father succeeded as a solicitor. From this provincial background he became a novelist.His enduring fame is as a Chronicler of the Potteries towns, the setting and inspiration of some of his most famous and enduring literary work and the place where he grew up.
Anna Tellwright, daughter of a wealthy but miserly and dictatorial father, lives in the Potteries area of Staffordshire, England. Her activities are strictly controlled by the Methodist church. Anna struggles for freedom and independence against her father's restraints, and her inward battle between wanting to please her father and wanting to help Willie Price whose father, Titus Price, committed suicide after falling into bankruptcy and debt.
The day Raina gave birth should have been the happiest of her life. Instead, it became her worst nightmare. Moments after delivering their twins, Alexander shattered her heart-divorcing her and forcing her to sign away custody of their son, Liam. With nothing but betrayal and heartbreak to her name, Raina disappeared, raising their daughter, Ava, on her own.Years later, fate comes knocking when Liam falls gravely ill. Desperate to save his son, Alexander is forced to seek out the one person he once cast aside. Alexander finds himself face to face with the woman he underestimated, pleading for a second chance-not just for himself, but for their son. But Raina is no longer the same broken woman who once loved him.No longer the woman he left behind. She has carved out a new life-one built on strength, wealth, and a long-buried legacy she expected to uncover.Raina has spent years learning to live without him.The question is... Will she risk reopening old wounds to save the son she never got to love? or has Alexander lost her forever?
On her wedding day, Khloe’s sister connived with her groom, framing her for a crime she didn’t commit. She was sentenced to three years in prison, where she endured much suffering. When Khloe was finally released, her evil sister used their mother to coerce Khloe into an indecent liaison with an elderly man. As fate would have it, Khloe crossed paths with Henrik, the dashing yet ruthless mobster who sought to alter the course of her life. Despite Henrik’s cold exterior, he cherished Khloe like no other. He helped her take retribution from her tormentors and kept her from being bullied again.
One year into marriage, Yvonne realized she was nothing more than a substitute for someone else's memory. When his true love reappeared, Julian tossed a divorce contract her way. "She's back. We're finished," he said flatly. The secret of her pregnancy stayed hidden. Yvonne fought the urge to cry, signed her freedom, and disappeared. Five years on, cameras flashed as Yvonne, radiant in red, strode across a film festival stage with her bright-eyed son. Julian's hands clenched as he watched. "Sir, the boy's four and a half," whispered his shaken assistant. Then, he rushed to the film set only to witness an A-list actor gently wrapping his arm around Yvonne's waist. "I've booked your favorite restaurant for tonight's celebration." The little boy blinked his innocent eyes at Julian, asking, "Who are you? One of my mom's crazy admirers?" He cornered her in the dressing room, his voice hoarse as he said, "Let's remarry." Her lips curled slightly, but the smile didn't reach her eyes. "The curtain's down; it's time to end this scene." But this time, he wasn't letting go.
The day my husband, a Mafia Underboss, told me I was genetically unfit to carry his heir, he brought home my replacement—a surrogate with my eyes and a working womb. He called her a "vessel" but paraded her as his mistress, abandoning me while I bled on the floor at a party to protect her and planning their secret future in the villa he once promised me. But in our world, wives don't just walk away—they disappear, and I decided to orchestrate my own vanishing act, leaving him to the ruin he so carefully built for himself.
Dayna had worshiped her husband, only to watch him strip her late mother's estate and lavish devotion on another woman. After three miserable years, he discarded her, and she lay broken-until Kristopher, the man she once betrayed, dragged her from the wreckage. He now sat in a wheelchair, eyes like tempered steel. She offered a pact: she would mend his legs if he helped crush her ex. He scoffed, yet signed on. As their ruthless alliance caught fire, he uncovered her other lives-healer, hacker, pianist-and her numb heart stirred. But her groveling ex crawled back. "Dayna, you were my wife! How could you marry someone else? Come back!"
Everyone in town knew Amelia had chased Jaxton for years, even etching his initials on her skin. When malicious rumors swarmed, he merely straightened his cuff links and ordered her to kneel before the woman he truly loved. Seething with realization, she slammed her engagement ring down on his desk and walked away. Not long after, she whispered "I do" to a billionaire, their wedding post crashing every feed. Panic cracked Jaxton. "She's using you to spite me," he spat. The billionaire just smiled. "Being her sword is my honor."
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