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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 joined together at the beginning
of the twentieth century as Stoke-on-Trent. Enoch Bennett, his father, qualified
as a solicitor in 1876, and the family were able to move to a larger house between
Hanley and Burslem. The younger Bennett was educated locally in Newcastle-under-Lyme.
At age 21 Arnold, who worked as a rent collector, left his father's practice and
went to London as a solicitor's clerk. He won a literary competition in 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 pounds. 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 to the magazine.
From 1900 he devoted himself full time to writing, giving up the editorship and
writing much serious criticism, and also theatre journalism, one of his special
interests. He moved to Trinity Hall Farm, Hockliffe, Bedfordshire on Watling Street
which was the inspiration for his novel Teresa of Watling Street which came out
in 1904. His father Enoch Bennett died there in 1902, and he is buried in Chalgrove
churchyard. In 1902 Anna of the Five Towns, the first of a succession of stories
which detailed life in the Potteries, appeared. In 1903 he moved to Paris, where
other great artists from around the world had converged on Montmartre and Montparnasse.
Bennett spent the next eight years writing novels and plays. In 1908 The Old Wives'
Tale was published, and was an immediate success throughout the English-speaking
world. After a visit to America in 1911 where he had been publicised and acclaimed
as no other visiting writer since Dickens, he returned to England where the Old
Wives' Tale was reappraised and hailed as a masterpiece. During the First World
War, he became Director of Propaganda at the War Ministry. He refused a knighthood
in 1918. In 1926 at the suggestion of Lord Beaverbrook, he began writing an influential
weekly article on books for the Evening Standard newspaper. He separated from
his French wife in 1922 but fell in love with the actress Dorothy Cheston, with
whom he remained until his death from typhoid in 1931. His ashes are buried in
Burslem cemetery. Their daughter Virginia Eldin lived in France and was president
of the Arnold Bennett Society. Discover Bennett's timeless wisdom for yourself by downloading our free eBook Click here and Download How to Live on 24 Hours a Day. |
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A short message from Guy
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Guy
Insull