Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Arnold Bennett
-
Standard Name: Bennett, Arnold
Birth Name: Enoch Arnold Bennett
Used Form: E. A. Bennett
An extraordinarily prolific English writer of both literary-realist and mass-interest novels, short stories, pocket philosophy self-help manuals, plays, journal articles and book reviews, AB
was acclaimed as an artist in his own time and was also politically and culturally influential. He served as director of the Ministry of Propaganda under Lord Beaverbrook
in the first world war. He estimated his own output in 1930 as seventy or eighty books written, of which only a handful were well-known.
Staley, Thomas F., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 34. Gale Research.
26
His wealth and influence, as well as his painstaking realism, earned him the scorn of the modernist writers of the next generation.
A satiric novel by WL
, The Roaring Queen, whose chief targets were Virginia Woolf
and Arnold Bennett
, was withdrawn from publication after threats of legal action. It was not published until 1973.
Oldsey, Bernard Stanley, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 15. Gale Research.
316
Literary responses
Rosamond Lehmann
Leonard Woolf
(in the The Nation and Athenæum on 10 September 1927), Desmond MacCarthy
, Arnold Bennett
, and Rose Macaulay
all had more or less serious reservations about the book: Macaulay used very readable...
Education
Philip Larkin
For ten years from 1930, as both a primary and a secondary-school student, PL
attended King Henry VIII School
in Coventry (now an independent school for both sexes, but founded in the sixteenth century as...
Preparing a defence against the allegations, Joyce's lawyer, Morris L. Ernst
, obtained hundreds of written opinions from educators, librarians, writers, clergy, and business people. Among those quoted in Ernst's court brief were Rebecca West
VH
and Maugham met again in Paris three years later, in 1905, and he introduced her to novelist Arnold Bennett
, with whom she became friends.
Belford, Barbara. Violet. Simon and Schuster.
115
Intertextuality and Influence
Violet Hunt
VH
was fascinated by the mysterious throughout her life. As a small girl, she loved to listen to her mother talk about the White Lady, a spirit haunting the kitchen of Margaret Hunt
's...
Fictionalization
Violet Hunt
In addition to the autobiographical strain running through some of her own work, VH
inspired characters created by several other writers. She is reimagined as Carlotta Peel in Sacred and Profane Love (1905) by Arnold Bennett
Literary responses
Sarah Grand
In an interview in 1895, SG
distinguished between her personal beliefs and those professed by her characters: The views of Evadne or Angelica . . . are not necessarily to be accepted as my views...
Literary responses
Sarah Grand
Reviewers in the Independent and The Bookman disliked this novel. The Bookman called it vulgar, and worse than vulgar.
Grand, Sarah. Sex, Social Purity and Sarah Grand: Volume 1. Editor Heilmann, Ann, Routledge.
518
Arnold Bennett
, in Fame and Fiction: An Enquiry into Certain Popularities (1891), was equally...
Textual Production
Constance Garnett
CG
's translation of Dostoevsky
's The Brothers Karamazov appeared: this version, suggested to her by Arnold Bennett
, was the first time that any of Dostoevsky's works had been translated into English.
Heilbrun, Carolyn. The Garnett Family. Allen and Unwin.
Tomalin, Clare. “Constance Garnett (1861 - 1946)”. Breaking Bounds. Six Newnham Lives, edited by Biddy Passmore, Newnham College, pp. 14-25.
22
Literary responses
John Galsworthy
JG
's literary reputation, established with his first Forsyte novel, was strong in the late Edwardian period and the early 1920s, but deteriorated later in the decade (though he remained very popular with the public)...
