UK Reading Experience Database - Browse Reader Readings Bennett Arnold

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Arnold Bennett

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Herbert Spencer : Autobiography

'Arnold Bennett, when reading [Herbert] Spencer's posthumously published Autobiography (1904), found the account "disappointingly deficient in emotion".'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

George Sturt : The Bettesworth Book

It is amusing to find him writing to Sturt, in 1900, to persuade him that it would be a good idea to try to sell 'Bettesworth' to Pearson's (a firm for which he was not a reader and adviser)- he suggests that he himself write a preface for it, and that it be published under the title 'Talks with my Gardener: a study of the English peasant.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Sheet

Edmund de Goncourt : Journals

He went to bed that night to read about the death of Jules from the Goncourt 'Journals', in order to put himself into the right artistic mood.

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Marie Corelli : ? The Sorrows of Satan

Arnold Bennett to George Sturt, 29 October 1895: "'I have just read Marie Corelli's new book -- my first of hers. I can now understand both her popularity and the critics' contempt.'"

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Honore de Balzac :

[Bennett] '. . .reread Balzac and de Maupassant and wondered whether he would be acccused of plagiarism.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Gaboriau : [detective fiction]

'. . . he was reading Gaboriau's detective fiction enthusiastically at this time, and makes several polite acknowledgements to him in the text itself, as well as in his journal.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

: The Bible

'In spite of his own decided irreligion, [Arnold] Bennett kept the Bible at his bedside and read it.'

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Edith Wharton : The House of Mirth

' ... when Arnold Bennett was reading Mrs [Edith] Wharton's "The House of Mirth" (1905), he concluded: "It can just be read. Probably a somewhat superior Mrs Humphry Ward".'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Guy de Maupassant : Bel-Ami

'...he had read so much of de Maupassant, and had admired him for so many years, that probably his manner and his conceptions had sunk into his subconscious. As he said to himself, on re-reading "Bel-Ami" after ten years in 1903 - "People might easily say that in "A Man from the North" I had plagiarized from it..."'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Guy de Maupassant : Une Vie

'When he reread "Une Vie", in March 1908, he could find faults, but they were irrelevant to the work that had been done to him.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Joris Karl Huysmans : Les Soeurs Vatards

'A more recent influence was Huysmans' "Les Soeurs Vatards", a novel about artisan life in a lace-maker's atelier in Paris, which he read with great admiration in March 1907, and which he admired for its uncompromising realism . . .'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Jules Claretie : L'Histoire de la R?volution de 1870-1871

'. . . Jules Claretie's "L'Histoire de la R?volution de 1870-1871." He says that he "looked at the pictures" in Claretie (though there is little doubt that he read it too). . .'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

unknown : Victoria History of the Potteries

'He did a good deal of research, reading up the "Victoria History of the Potteries" and various other documentary sources'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Arnold Bennett : The Honeymoon

"He would read acts of 'The Honeymoon' aloud to the two women, conscious that he did not read well, but considering it as a good test, to see if his lines could withstand a bad rendering."

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Sheet

Pauline Smith : The Little Karoo

'. . . her short stories, 'The Little Karoo', all set in the South Africa of her childhood, were widely admired and are still remembered. Bennett must have felt a justified pride in writing an introduction for the collection, in 1925, describing himself as "the earliest wondering admirer of her strange, austere, tender and ruthless talent"'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

H. G. Wells : Ann Veronica

'Bennett had read "Ann Veronica", which Wells had sent him that October with an inscription "The Young Mistress's Tale, to Arnold B. with love from his nephew H.G.": he hadn't been over-impressed with it, surprisingly, perhaps.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

William Shaw : When I was a Child, Recollections of an Old Potter

'. . . his reading of that remarkable book, "When I was a Child, Recollections of an Old Potter"'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

H. G. Wells : New Machiavelli, The

'In January he had read Wells's 'The New Machieavelli' . . .[sic]'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Arnold Bennett : Milestones

'The play was finished after a long summer of hard work on 24 August: they sat in an arbour to read it with an audience of Marguerite Sheldon and Knoblock's agent Miss Kauser but as they both read badly they didn't give it a fair hearing.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Unknown

Fyodor Dostoyevsky : unknown

'When it rained, Bennett stayed in the cabin and read Dostoevsky.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

: [history]

'In the November before, he had said to himself as he sat reading history, "I am 46. On the decline. why fill my head with knowledge?"'

Unknown

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett

H. G. Wells : Marriage

'In a letter to Mrs Herzog he says: "Wells's new novel, Marriage, of which I have just read the proofs, contains more intimate conveyances of the atmosphere of married life than anybody has ever achieved before, I am rather annoyed as I am about to try and get the same intimacy in my Clayhanger-Hilda book, entitled These Twain.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Unknown, proofs of book

: Times, The

'. . . reading the reviews, not even the book, of Mrs Parnell's "Life of Parnell". There was a full-page review in "The Times" of 19 May, and on 21 May another long piece in "The Times Literary Supplement", which Bennett read, and which emphasized the passionate nature of Parnell's love . . .'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Newspaper

: Times Literary Supplement, The

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

William Charles Macready : [diary]

'Rather like celibate life in Paris again. I dined at the club and read Macready's diary;. . .'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

T. S. Eliot : Criterion, The

'He had recommended T.S. Eliot to the War Office in 1918, and continued to praise his poetry and his periodical, the "Criterion"'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

D.H. Lawrence : Lost Girl, The

'He read "The Lost Girl" at the end of November just when he was himself most deeply engaged in trivia, and immediately recognizes it as "the work of a genius", Lawrence as "far and away the best of the younger school"'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

F. Sommer Merryweather : Lives and Anecdotes of Misers

'The conception of this particular novel ["Riceyman Steps"] was probably sparked off by the discovery, in an old Southampton bookshop, T. James and Co., of 34 Bernard Street, of a curious old book called "Lives and Anecdotes of Misers", by F. Sommer Merryweather (1850). Bennett bought it in 1921 on one of his yachting expeditions, read it and used it.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

unknown :

'...he read widely about working-class life in the district.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Mioddleton Murry : Adelphi, The

'Intellectually, he seems to have been most concerned with the affairs of Middleton Murry's new periodical, the "Adelphi". . . . doesn't like Murry's layout and advertising. . .criticized Middleton Murry's editorials about his late wife Katherine Mansfield. . . . Bennett's letters about this problem are a model of tact . . .'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Gertrude Stein : unknown

'...he confessed that he could not understand a word of Gertrude Stein.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

John Middleton Murry : Wrap me up in my Aubusson Carpet

'When Middleton Murry attacked George Moore in an editorial of the "Adelphi" in April 1924, he [Arnold Bennett] wrote a very strong letter of protest, and rightly: Murry's piece, "Wrap me up in my Aubusson Carpet", had been a characteristically emotional and unbalanced attack . . .'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Balzac :

'...he continued to . . . reassess his first loves, such as Balzac, whom he begins to doubt: in May 1926 he finds him "thin and tedious", says he will try "Splendeurs et Miseres des Courtisanes" again, and "if that won't pass, I'll try 'Cousine Bette', which I think is the finest Balzac . . ."'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

:

'. . .he was annoyed with Capes for misquoting his enthusiasm for Joyce in an advertisement for "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man"'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Advertisement

J.B. Priestley : Mercury, The

'He was annoyed by some of Priestley's comments in "The Mercury" (February 1924) as he notes in his journal . . .'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Theodore Dreiser :

'There Bennett worked on his novel, read Dreiser and Balzac, . . .'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

H.G. Wells : The World of William Clissold

'Although Bennett had reservations about the book, he had enjoyed it, and had at once written to tell his friend so'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

D.H. Lawrence : [review of H.G. Wells's "The World of William Clissold"]

'D. H. Lawrence . . . reviewed the novel [The World of William Clissold by Wells] in the "Calendar" of October 1926, in a piece which Bennett says shows his "childish and spiteful disposition".'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

:

'On 9 February he read in the paper news that turned his mind from the future to the past. His old friend George Sturt was dead.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Newspaper

Fyodor Dostoyevsky : Brothers Karamazov, The

'He travelled alone, by train, . . . reading "The Brothers Karamazov" for the fourth time'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

:

'Bennett had seen a placard announcing its publication in Cassell's "Storyteller" magazine on Victoria Station just before his departure for Sicily in April.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Advertisement, Poster

:

'Bennett, Dorothy, and the Board of Sloane Productions Ltd read all the notices the next day and found them satisfactory.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Newspaper

William Rothenstein : Men and Memories

'He even found time to be as courteous and helpful as ever to old friends, reading through, for instance, William Rothenstein's 'Men and Memories in typescript, with many encouraging and critical comments'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: typescript

W Somerset Maugham : Cakes and Ale

'He returned to London to . . . Somerset Maugham's "Cakes and Ale", which he admired . . .'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

D.H. Lawrence : Virgin and the Gipsy, The

'He returned to London to . . . Lawrence's "Virgin and the Gipsy", which he admired even more [than "Cakes and Ale"].'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

J.W. Dunne : Experiment with Time, An

'He had been reading, she said, J.W. Dunne's "Experiment with Time" - also Einstein and Addington.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

W.L. Alden : article/review of "Anna of the Five Towns"

'Do not fail to get the Literary Supplement to the New York Times for Oct 4th & see W.L. Alden?s extraordinary appreciation of "Anna". He says it is the best novel of the sort since "Esther Waters". (It is.). . . I have sent my cutting to Chatto'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Newspaper, Literary Supplement

: [reviews]

'By the way the reviews of "Leonora" in Athenaeum, Sketch, & T.P.?s Weekly have much pleased me. The swine on the Chronicle hadn?t read the book, & refrained from saying anything very definite'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Newspaper, Serial / periodical

:

'And another early serial of mine, which he [Tillotson] bought, is just beginning in La Sera, of Milan. I had the advertisement today.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Advertisement

:

'I notice that Chatto is leaving "Hugo" out of his advertising list. . . . He has a permanent advertisement in today?s Tribune.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Advertisement, Book

:

'It ["Hugo"] was also left out of his [Andrew Chatto's] advt in the Times on Friday. Perhaps you can ascertain the reason.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Advertisement, Newspaper

:

'I have read through the 12 lessons of the Literary Correspondence College, & made a few corrections & suggestions, & I return them by parcel post. They are devilish good. But it is impossible to deny that they [italics] are [end italics] my book. There is not, I think, a single sentence in all the lessons that is not my ipsissima verba. And beyond the chapters on journalism, verse etc, there is nothing in my book which is not in these lessons. In a word, the twelve lessons are simply my book split up and typewritten.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Unknown

Agnes Farley : Ashdod

'You will receive in a few days the typescript of the novel of your new client, Mrs Farley, 16 rue de la Paix. . . . I have read through the novel, and had it altered to suit my notions several times. So you can take my guarantee that it is sound, quiet, capable, library fiction, quite up to the standard.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: typescript

Joseph Conrad : Secret Agent, The

'Conrad?s book, though of course very distinguished, is not as good as his last.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Frank Harris : Bomb, The

'Do you want Frank Harris? If so, I think I could bring him into the fold. . . . His last book "The Bomb" (which is a masterly thing) is published by Long (!) who gave him ?75 in advance.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Frank Harris :

'He [Frank Harris] has two or three books unpublished; including one on Shakespeare which is probably the most penetrating book on Shakespeare ever written.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Unknown

:

'He [Waugh] told me he expected the book to keep on selling. You might give him to understand that the eyes of Europe are upon him at this crisis, and point out to him the recent remarkable reviews in the Daily News and the Graphic, as mines of quotation.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Newspaper, Serial / periodical

W.L. George :

'[W.L. George] wrote a good little book on modern France. This is all I know of his work, except newspaper articles.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Arnold Bennett : Regent, The

'I have this day despatched to you in two book packets, a copy of "The Regent". You may take it positively from me that this book is all right. I have read nearly all of it aloud to friends, with enormous success.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: manuscript of new novel (typescript?)

Arnold Bennett : Journal

'By the way, My Journal is now in its eighteenth volume, and almost the whole of it is yet in manuscript. Whenever I look at it it seems to me to be rather interesting, and some of my friends say that it is far more interesting than anything else I have written.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Unknown

Compton McKenzie : Sinister Street

'I infinitely regret to say that having read the 2 vols of "Sinister Street", I don?t think it is permanent work; the beginning & the end are the best.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

: legal contract

'I return the draft contract. It seems to me that the alteration in clause 3 practically abolishes the stock rights, and I should like you to consider this further. As regards clause 7, I think that an undertaking to produce in any first-class theatre in the United States is too vague.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: draft legal contract

: legal contract

The contract is not entirely in my favour, and neither you nor any other experienced manager would be so foolish as to sign a contract entirely in favour of the other party.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: draft legal contract

James Douglas :

'If Machen?s onslaught is worse than Jimmy Douglas?s in the ?Star?, it will be a treat.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Newspaper

Arnold Bennett : The Roll Call

'I have received some copies of "The Roll Call". They are odious in a very high degree. I do not complain of the quality of the paper, but I object to there being two half-titles one before the title and the other after it! I object more strongly to the illustrated cover being passed without reference to the author and still more strongly to the descriptive matter not being submitted to the author. The description of the book inside the jacket: "Can a man love two women is the theme of this book", is perfectly ridiculous and extremely misleading.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Arnold Bennett : The Roll Call

'I have received some copies of 'The Roll Call'. They are odious in a very high degree. I do not complain of the quality of the paper, but I object to there being two half-titles one before the title and the other after it! I object more strongly to the illustrated cover being passed without reference to the authorand still more strongly to the descriptive matter not being submitted to the author. The description of the book inside the jacket: 'Can a man love two women is the theme of this book,' is perfectly ridiculous and extremely misleading.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: proofs

D.H. Lawrence : Lost Girl, The

'I have just read the latter. ["The Lost Girl".] It is very remarkable indeed, and would be great if it had a real theme and some construction. This man is a genius, and is far and away the best of the younger school.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

unknown : Old Wives' Tale, The

'I read the scenario of "The Old Wives" Tale.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Sheet, typescript film scenario

:

'On Saturday I saw for the first time an advertisement of this book, [Lilian] which I suppose has been out for quite a month.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Advertisement

Silas Hocking : unknown

'... he devotes a whole serious and excellent essay to an exploration of the fame of Silas Hocking, who wrote novels calculated to please "the taste of the Methodist million, who was unheard of in Knightsbridge but wildly popular in the dissenting provinces". Apart from any other interest, this essay throws light on Bennett's own reading background; he discusses the debate between Puritanism and the arts, describes the deep suspicion with which all fiction was regarded in Hocking circles and says: "How often have I heard the impatient words: 'This is too exciting for me; if I went on I shouldn't be able to leave it'." It must have been up in Burslem, where reading had recently been regarded as a wicked sin, that he heard such remarks.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

unknown : unknown

'With the Marriotts, Bennett found himself among friends. This was a cultured household, with musical evenings, improvised theatricals and constant talk of art. It was also informal. Bennett used to read at meals.'

Unknown

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett

Karl Baedeker : [guidebook on Florence]

'Bennett needed a guide when he travelled abroad - and his Florentine Journal is touchingly full of his delightful efforts to see and understand all, through his Baedeker...'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

: [French newspapers]

'They would talk French, eat in French restaurants, read French newspapers and visit the British Museum together.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Newspaper

: Girl's Own

'From fine I turned to applied art, diverted by a periodical called The Girl's Own Paper. For a long period this monthly, which I now regard as quaint, but which I shall never despise, was my principal instrument of culture. It alone blew upon the spark of artistic feeling and kept it alive. It derived from it my first ideals of aesthetic and of etiquette. Under its influence my brother and myself started on a revolutionary campaign against all the accepted canons of house decoration.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Anon : Ugly Duckling

[reminiscing about the Ugly Duckling, first story he remembers reading when he was 6 or so] 'When the ugly duckling at last flew away on his strong pinions, and when he met the swans and was accepted as an equal, then I felt sorrowful, agreeably sorrowful. It seemed to me nothing could undo, atone for, the grief and humiliations of the false duckling's early youth.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

William Shaw : When I was a child, recollections from an old potter

'The description of his [the character Darius Clayhanger in Clayhanger] labours as a child, and his days in the workhouse, are not drawn from Enoch's own past, but largely from a book by William Shaw published in 1903, called When I was a Child, Recollections of an Old Potter [title in italics]. But Arnold Bennett's knowledge of such matters cannot have been gleaned wholly from books. It must have been in the air.'

Century: Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

unknown : various

[Arnold Bennett's father] 'encouraged them to read. As soon as he had any money he began to buy books, and one of the features of the house in Waterloo Road was its "Book Room". Arnold recalls: "His library was the largest in my youthful experience. [We]? estimate it at one thousand volumes - mostly dull and worthless, but all dignified. He had a passion for filling his offspring with information, at small trouble to himself. When any point of dispute arose he would say "look it up". We looked it up!"'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Ouida : unknown

'In these last years in the Five Towns, before he left for London, Bennet claims to have done little reading, apart from work for his law examinations; though he admits to Ouida and Vizetelly's translation of Zola.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Emile Zola : unknown

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Grant Allen : What's bred in the bone

'he entered a competition held by Tit-Bits. The prize money was twenty guineas, and it was offered for a "humorous condensation" of a sensational serial which the paper had been running. The serial was called What's bred in the bone [title in italics], and it was by Grant Allen, a scientist-turned novelist like Wells...'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Henry James : unknown

'Bennett selected the things that interested him - notably novelists such as Henry James, Thomas Hardy, and his friend George Paston. It was through a review of a book by H. G. Wells that the two men first became friends, Bennett taking the initiative and writing to Wells in September 1897 to say how much he liked his work, and to ask him how well he knew the Potteries, which Wells had mentioned in several of his stories.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Thomas Hardy : unknown

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

George Paston : unknown

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

H G Wells : unknown

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

George Sturt : letter

'Six weeks since I received your letter! ... I have no great interest in the theory of our sacred art.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Letter

George Moore : A Mummer's Wife

'he claimed that he had not thought of using them [the Potteries] as fiction until he read another man's work of fiction, George Moore's A Mummer's wife [title in italics]; he wrote to Moore on 24 December 1920, "I wish also to tell you that it was the first chapters of A Mummer's wife [title in italics] which opened my eyes to the romantic nature of the district I had blindly inhabited for over twenty years.'

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

George Moore : A Mummer's Wife

'A Mummer's Wife [title in italics] had impressed him very much with its power and its Staffordshire setting.'

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Maurice Barres : Le Jardin de Berenice

'Thanks for your letter & the book. A word in reference to the former. I can?t boast that I discovered what purports to be the "central idea" of the novel for myself. I first heard of Barr?s in an article bY Edward Delille in the "Fortnightly." Next I read a criticism of this very book in the latest volume issued of Anatole France?s "La Vie Litteraire". Lastly there was a rather striking article in a recent "Scribner" on new ideas in French Literature generally in which the name of Barr?s was prominent. So when I actually bought the book I knew just what to expect. As I understand the thing, the author is at direct variance with Flaubert, Zola & Guy de Maupassant, who at all costs aim at an impartial, impersonal presentment of life. He prefers to take a character & describe events and men solely in relation to their effect on that character. In a word his novel is all hero. He cares nothing for absolute perspective. He interests himself in nothing but what affects his hero. Everything is described through the hero?s eyes, & consequently everything is intentionally coloured & distorted. He utterly despises the "one-eyed apathetic insight of the camera". You mention his symbolism. I believe that the presence of numerous symbols & analogies in the actual writing is only a minor & unimportant manifestation of the symbolist theory. The whole book in its main outlines is a congeries of symbols. . . '

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Edward Delille : [article on Maurice Barres]

'I first heard of Barr?s in an article by Edward Delille in the Fortnightly.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Anatole France : La Vie Litteraire

'. I first heard of Barr?s in an article be Edward Delille in the Fortnightly. Next I read a criticism of this very book in the latest volume issued of Anatole France?s La Vie Litteraire.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

: 'Scribner'

'Lastly there was a rather striking article in a recent Scribner on new ideas in French Literature generally in which the name of Barr?s was prominent.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Guy de Maupassant : Bel-Ami

'. . . I have just finished Guy de Maupassant?s Bel Ami. One of the most obviously truthful, British-matron-shocking, disgusting, attractive, overwhelmingly-powerful novels I have ever read. It would be a good antidote to Le Jardin de Berenice. Would you like it?'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

George Sturt : Fruit Blossom Time

'What pleasure hast thou given me during the last few days! First your letter then your essay ?Fruit Blossom Time? & then your nameless novel.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Letter, Sheet

George Sturt : [unnamed novel]

'What pleasure hast thou given me during the last few days! First your letter then your essay "Fruit Blossom Time" & then your nameless novel. ...I am in a fever to finish the novel. Ken made me turn it up when I was at part ten. I shall, Sturto volente, animadvert at length upon it at a future date, Now, I will only say that I like it very much. Its calm, unabashed realism charms me. You find fault with Maupassant for his wealth of irrelevant ... detail. Frankly, I think you would do well to follow him some way in this. I don't think all his detail is irrelevant. . . . No, I believe in detail.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Letter, Sheet

'Par Un Initie' : Mysteres des Sciences Occultes

'But happening to mention one day to my Editor that I thought "Occult" stories would go down well just now, & that I had a lot of material for them in hand I was a little surprised to see him jump at the suggestion, & offer to buy the serial rights of eight stories at once. So, deeming eight stories sold in advance to be better than a novel perhaps on my hands, I have shelved the latter for a time, & am to be seen daily reading a vast tome "Myst?res des Sciences Occultes". I tremble to consider the bad art which will be compressed into those stories!'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

George Sturt : A Courting Umbrella

'But in the case of a story like yours, which is over the heads of the foolish, amiable readers of our "bright little paper", but which I should like, for the good of literature & the credit of Woman, to have in the paper, I should prefer to throw the responsibility for the acceptance on my Editor?s shoulders.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Sheet

Mrs. Humphry Ward : The Story of Bessie Cottrell

'You may know that Mrs Humphry Ward is one of my literary bugbears. I have never really read any of her much-lauded works, but from casual glances into one or two of them & the perusal of copious reviews, I have felt instinctively that she was No Good. A new book of hers, a short one, The Story of Bessie Costrell, will appear in three months time & I have been promising myself the pleasure of scalping the woman. The tale runs through Cornhill in three instalments & in order that my onslaught might appear immediately after publication of the book, contemporaneously with the fulsome flatteries which the daily press is certain to shake out, I determined to read the thing carefully in serial form, and prepare a reasoned expos?. I have just returned from the Free Library. The mischief is, I find the first instalment damn well done. It is beautifully arranged and selected. The writing, without being great, is dignified and decent; and it is perfectly clear that she knows what she is talking about, to wit, village life.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

C.E. Francis : Every Day's News

"'Every Day?s News', the last Pseudonym, contains this passage:??Literature was to him passion & a torment. . . . the author of this book evidently knows his character intimately; & as he makes him do something decent in the writing line, I am more happy still. I shall give the book a damn good notice."

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Ivan Sergevich Turgenev : On the Eve

'(I am tempted, by the way, to say that 'On the Eve' is the finest novel I have ever read. I must lend it you. Its subtlety and restraint prevent it from ever being really popular.)'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Marie Corelli : Sorrows of Satan

'I have just read Marie Corelli?s new book?my first of hers. I can now understand both her popularity & the critics? contempt.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Robert Louis Stevenson : Some technical elements of style in literatue

'In my new vol. of the Edinburgh Stevenson, there is a luminous essay, reprinted for the first time from a Fortnightly Review of 1881, on ?some technical elements of style in literature.? You must read it when you come up; it is profoundly interesting to a craftsman. . . . I read the thing last night in bed?after an evening at Chapman?s?& was made to think thereby.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Dr Peter Mark Roget : Thesaurus

'. . . have you got Roget?s Thesaurus of English words and phrases? It is the most wonderful machine for getting at words that you know but can?t think of at the moment, that I have encountered. . . I bought it about a year ago, & wonder how I ever did without it.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Ivan Sergevich Turgenev : On the Eve

'My favourite masters & models: 1. Turgenev, a royal first (you must read 'On the Eve'?flawless I tell you. Bring back such books of mine as you have; I have others you must read). 2. de Maupassant. 3. de Goncourts. 4. George Moore?the great author who can neither write nor spell! Stevenson only helps me in minute details of style.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Guy de Maupassant : unknown

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Edmund and Jules de Goncourt : Renee Mauperin

'. . . I learnt this from the brothers de Goncourt. I must get you to read their 'Renee Mauperin'. To study the principles of its construction is both 'entertaining & instructive.' My favourite masters & models: 1. Turgenev, a royal first (you must read 'On the Eve'?flawless I tell you. Bring back such books of mine as you have; I have others you must read). 2. de Maupassant. 3. de Goncourts. 4. George Moore?the great author who can neither write nor spell! Stevenson only helps me in minute details of style.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

George Moore : unknown

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Robert Louis Stevenson : unknown

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Thomas Hardy : Jude the Obscure

'You might, if you care, read my criticism of Hardy?s new novel in Wednesday next?s Woman ?though it contains little actual criticism, I imagine it to give a sort of impression of the book.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

George Paston : A Modern Amazon, A Bread and Butter Miss, A Study in Prejudices

'My reviewing has been mixing me up with literary folk lately. One ?George Paston? (niece of John Addington Symonds) whose 3 books I have consistently belauded wants to behold me in the flesh, & she is going to; I like her work much.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

George Moore : A Modern Lover

'I couldn?t get her [?George Paston?] to give George Moore a good word. I have just been reading his first novel.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Ivan Sergevich Turgenev : Smoke

'I have just read Turgenev?s Smoke. Man, we have more to learn in mere technique from Turgenev than from any other soul. He is simply unspeakable. I will ram this statement down your throat when I see you, with the book in front of us.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Ivan Sergevich Turgenev : On the Eve

"'On the Eve' is more than a nice novel; it is a great novel. I think that if I could read it in Russian I should set it down as the greatest within my knowledge."

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Edmond and Jules de Goncourt : Germinie Lacerteux

'I am just reading 'Germinie Lacerteux,' the masterpiece (I fancy) of the de Goncourts.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

A.C. Swinburne : review of 'The Golden Age'

'What a lift for 'The Golden Age' in today?s Chronicle.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Newspaper

George Sturt : A Year's Exile

'For exercise I have just ridden over to Ken?s for your novel, though I am so busy I haven?t time to read it today. I have, however, snatched 20 minutes for the first two chapters. The first, to me, at first reading, is somewhat shadowy, but the second, my pippin, is positively masterly.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Unknown

George Sturt : A Year's Exile

'Well, Sir, I have read your novel, & I am ready to bet a guinea to a gooseberry that, if read by Street, it will not be refused by John Lane for reasons artistic. ? It is one of the most genuinely original novels that I have ever read; I don?t mean original in design, but in the outlook of the author.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Sheet

John Buchan : Reader's report on an [unspecified] novel by Bennett

'He said, handing me a document, ?Here is the report on your novel.? I read it. It was very laudatory on all counts, & quite free from fault finding except as to one trifling & quite inessential point. There was a rider that in John Buchan?s opinion it would not be popular. Lane said, I will publish your novel.?

Unknown

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett

Ivan Sergevich Turgenev : A Sportsman's Sketches

'Turgenev has forestalled you. & a bit to spare, in ?A Sportsman?s Sketches?, which you shall take home with you next time you come to London. These sketches are obviously records of things seen & heard by the author during his sporting tours, records devoid of literary artfulness, but chocked full of the art of observation, I know that you will be both delighted & edified by them, I read some of them a few years ago, & thought they were tame and lacked form. Now I know better.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Stendhal : De l'amour

'Ever read Stendhal?s ?Physiologie de l?amour?? If not, do. 1 franc is the price. It is vivacious, epigrammatic, & full of common-sense. I think he must be a great man. It was Miss Symonds mentioned the book to me, though she hadn?t read it herself.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Edmond de Goncourt : Madame Gervaisais

'Certain events (which I will relate when I see you?may it be soon) at the office have given me an idea for another novel; a study of religious mania?? la 'Madame Gervaisais', which you should read if you don?t know it already.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

George Sturt : voyage diary

'P.S. I also return the voyage diary. It is excellent, & I was very pleased with it.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Unknown

J.M. Barrie : Sentimental Tommy

"I am now myself in cap III of 'Sentimental Tommy'. So far, it strikes me, as it struck me before in 'Scribner', as a little too merely facetious, Seems as if the beggar didn?t know when he was being humorous & when merely funny ? la Jerome. Having instinctive doubts of the book, I shouldn?t have started it only for Miss Symonds? urgent recommendation."

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

J.M. Barrie : Margaret Ogilvy/by her son

'Barrie?s 'Margaret Ogilvy', though a trifle loose in the mere writing, is a divine thing, my boy?sort of book that immediately you have finished it you begin again, No fear of his reputation deliquescing just yet, with that to solidify it.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Frederic Jessup Stimson : King Noanett:A Story of Old Virginia and the Massachusetts Bay

'Dear Mr Lane, I must apologise for not returning 'King Noanett'. But I have been so awfully busy lately that I have not had time to finish it. I propose to take it into the country with me & let you have it next week certain.

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Harold Frederic : Illumination, or, The damnation of Theron Ware

'I wait only for one little incident to shape itself and then I can march on up to, & right through, my great revival scene in the Wesleyan Methodist chapel, which is to beat Harold Frederic in his own chosen field.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Rudyard Kipling : The Long Trail

'I have never (in his prose work) found a trace of the artist?s passion for words & loving care over them; & in his poetry I am convinced that the extraordinarily vivid images & similes that he gets hold of (?the thresh of the deep sea rain?, for instance,) are used in the rough just as they come to him. . . . I fancy he would rather scorn mere artistry, & when it was mentioned begin to talk about fighting or famine or fakirs.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Ernest Dupuy : Les Grand Maitres de la litterature russe

'I have Dupuy?s 'Les Grand Maitres de la literature russe', which strikes me as being platitudinous & not very informing or critical; also de Vog???s 'Le Roman russe'.

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Marie Eugene Melchior de Vogue : Le Roman russe

'I have Dupuy?s 'Les Grand Maitres de la literature russe', which strikes me as being platitudinous & not very informing or critical; also de Vog???s 'Le Roman russe'.

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

G. S. Street : reader's report on "Bettesworth"

'I saw Lane for a few brief moments last night. He showed me a second report on Bettesworth, by G.S. Street. It was distinctly favourable & appreciative. '

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Unknown

Alexandre Dumas : unknown

'My sole solaces have been Dumas, & Nolan?s delightful companionship at Brussels.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Mrs H. H. Penrose : The Unequal Yoke

'I feel conscious of sin in regard to your manuscripts. With reference to An Unequal Yoke I knew that Young was bitten by it, & so asked him to supper & whiskey just in order to finish the matter up. Unfortunately some other men took it into their heads also to call that night & we couldn?t say a word together. . . . Touching Toddles: A Nuisance I have read this with great pleasure, & if Toddles is Claude, I want to know him instantly, forthwith, and immediately. . . . This book will sell all right: Constables; Hutchinsons; A.D. Innes? A. & C. Black ; J.M. Dent & Co; might be tried.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Unknown

Mrs H. H. Penrose : Chubby, A Nuisance, A Study of Child-life

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Unknown

H.G. Wells : The Time Machine

'For a long time I have been intending to write to you, & express my appreciation of your work, & also to ask what is your connection with Burslem & the potteries, Burslem ( where I come from) is mentioned at the beginning of 'The Time Machine', & one of your short stories runs over the entire pottery district? I forget the title of it .' I enclose my review of your last book.

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

H.G. Wells : The Cone in 'The Plattner Story and Others'

'For a long time I have been intending to write to you, & express my appreciation of your work, & slso to ask what is your connection with Burslem & the potteries, Burslem ( where I come from) is mentioned at the beginning of 'The Time Machine', & one of your short stories runs over the entire pottery district? I forget the title of it . I enclose my review of your last book.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

H.G. Wells : The Invisible Man

'For a long time I have been intending to write to you, & express my appreciation of your work, & slso to ask what is your connection with Burselem & the potteries, Burslem ( where I come from) is mentioned at the beginning of 'The Time Machine', & one of your short stories runs over the entire pottery district? I forget the title of it . I enclose my review of your last book.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

William Edwards Tirebuck : Miss Grace of All Souls

'I am quite sure there is an aspect of these industrial districts which is really grandiose, full of dark splendours, & which has been absolutely missed by all novelists up to date. Tirebuck in 'Miss Grace of All Souls' was too much interested in his individual characters to note synthetically the general aspect, & Nevinson in 'Valley of Tophet' also let it escape him...'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Henry Woodd Nevinson : In the Valley of Tophet

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Rudyard Kipling : Captains Courageous

'Also to tell you that I have this morning read Kipling?s new book Captains Courageous, & that it is MAGNIFICENT.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

George Sturt : A Note on Fiction

'With regard to your article, though admiring of the ingenuity of it, I yearned to tear the argument to rags. There is scarcely a single statement in that article to which I do not take violent exception. . . . Webster was intensely pleased with it, dreamed of it I believe, & only his modesty stopped him from addressing you thereon a note of congratulation. Marriott read it with awe; possibly it opened his eye to the strange fact that other arts than painting have their absorbing mysteries of technique.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Joseph Conrad : The Nigger of the Narcissus

'That Conrad book is magnificent.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Joseph Conrad : The Nigger of the Narcissus

'My Dear Wells, I owe you a good turn for pointing out Conrad to me. I remember I got his first book, Almayer?s Folly, to review with a batch of others from Unwin, & feeling at the time rather bored (you know the feeling?I get through 50 or 60 novels a month for two papers) I simply didn?t read it at all?wrote a vague & discreet par. & left it.' I have just read his new book 'The Nigger of the Narcissus', which has moved me to enthusiasm. Where did the man pick up that style, & that synthetic way of gathering up a general impression & flinging it at you? Not only his style, but his attitude, affected me deeply. He is so consciously an artist.

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Guy de Maupassant : Etude sur Gustave Flaubert

'Have you read de Maupassant?s '?tude sur Gustave Flaubert', preface to Bouvard et P?cuchet?from which I quote above? It is a most illuminating business, & one of the best bits of general literary criticism that I know of.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Eden Phillpotts : Lying Prophets

'Just now I am reading a most excellent & very English novel, 'Lying Prophets', by Eden Phillpotts. I have lately got rather chummy with Phillpotts & he is a grand chap, though suffering from a total ignorance of French literature.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

George Moore : unknown

'I reckon I can do something with Moore. . . I occupy the time of waiting in reading G.M. & making notes. The business has given me vague flitting shapes of ideas for a book on modern fiction.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Charles Dickens : The Old Curiosity Shop

'Of Dickens, dear friend, I know nothing. About a year ago, from idle curiosity, I picked up The Old Curiosity Shop, & of all the rotten vulgar un-literary writing. . .! Worse than George Eliot?s. If a novelist can?t write where is the beggar?'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Guy de Maupassant : unknown

'I took up de Maupassant to inspire me into a new theme; got one in about 5 minutes, & in an hour had arrived at the details. But it is too new to work at tonight.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

George Sturt : A Year's Exile

'I read 'A Year?s Exile' during the three hours? journey down here on Thursday afternoon, & have passed it on to Frank to review in Woman. As for me, I shall review it in Hearth & Home. I have now read it twice, and come to a definite conclusion about it.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Henry Havelock Ellis : Affirmations

'You should get hold of Havelock Ellis?s new book Affirmations. It is all good; and there is an essay on Huysmans that I have found very inspiring indeed.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Allan Noble Monkhouse : A Deliverance

'As the writer of the recent article upon you in the 'Academy' I venture upon the intrusion of telling you personally that I was much impressed by your remarkable novel.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Eden Phillpotts : Children of the Mist

'Have you read Phillpotts? Children of the Mist? It is a great book.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

W.B. Yeats : The Celtic Twilight

'At the moment I am in the act of discovering ?W.B. Yeats?, the Irish poet, whose prose, to my mind, is just about equal to anything going round. I have been fascinated by The Celtic Twilight, a little volume of essays about fairies & spirits. I wrote down to Frank, full of enthusiasm & advised him to get the thing, He writes back: ?I bought Celtic Twilight when it came out, & have admired it for six years now.? Today I gave Young carte blanche to get me Yeats? complete works. It dawns upon me that he is one of the men of the century, so intensely spiritual, & with a style which is the last word of simplicity & natural refinement.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

H.G. Wells : A Story of the Days to Come

'I am writing now because I must?to congratulate you on the short stories on the Pall Mall Magazine, which seem to improve as they go on , & which certainly strike me as being fine & in a very special sense original work. . . . Do you not consider yourself fortunate, this time, in your illustrator?'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

A. E. Housman : A Shropshire Lad

'Have you read Housman?s poems A Shropshire Lad? They are only immortal, that?s all. I take them as a tonic.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Eden Phillpotts : unknown

'I have perused his [Eden Philpott's] agreeable verse in February Pall Mall Mag. I think that while Halkett has done very well with the illustrations he has gone very much off in his fiction department.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

: Woman

'I have just been looking, with surprise & pleasure, at this week?s 'Woman'. It is really very good.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Newspaper, Serial / periodical

G. B. Shaw : The Quintessence of Ibsenism

". . . you have helped to forward the sublime principles involved in the admirable chapter on the Parrot-woman in 'The Quintessence of Ibsenism'".

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Arnold Bennett :

'. . . I am charmed with a serial of mine now running with great ?clat & Reginald Cleaver?s illustrations, in a sheet entitled the "Golden Penny". To read the instalments each week does me good, they are so exactly what they should be (& good English thrown in gratis).'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Havergall Bates : The Believing Bishop

'If you have not read "The Believing Bishop" by Havergall Bates (whoever he may be) [George Allen] let me recommend it to you as a fine disturbing book'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Thomas Lloyd Humbertstone : [article]

'This enclosed article is the third of yours that I have read. The first (about modelling) was about the most impersonal thing I ever came across. The second (spiders) was much better. And this third surprises me by its force & vitality.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Sheet

H. G. Wells : Anticipations

'I perceive you couldn?t keep your new house out of the "Fortnightly"! This third article is the best yet. I have never seen so good an illustration of the scientific use of imagination.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Charles Dickens : David Copperfield

'I have not even yet made up my mind about Dickens, & I am glad that so far I have never expressed an opinion about him, except playfully, in print. I got fairly stuck in "David Copperfield" & the same in "Pickwick". I am forced to admit that I am out of sympathy with those big Victorians. . . .'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Charles Dickens : The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

William Wordsworth : 'Michael'

'Lately I have been reading Wordsworth with joy, for almost the first time. "Michael" quite overcame me by its perfect simplicity & power. I have read it about ten times lately.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

H. G. Wells : unknown

'I note lately the evidence of an extraordinary activity on your part. Perhaps you have observed how difficult it is to pick up a decent magazine without You in it. I took in the "Fortnightly" and the "Strand" in order to run even with you. And now damned if you haven?t let me in for "Pearson?s"! And I hear rumour of a "Dream of Armageddon" in something else. You make your readers work.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

H. G. Wells : unknown

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Thomas Lloyd Humberstone : Coventry

'I think the article on Sir John Gorst is able & shows a sufficient grasp of the subject; the tone of it also seems to me to be right . . . . As it stands, I think little of the chances of "Coventry" . . . People don?t want to know about their own country. If Coventry was in Italy, it would be different. As the article is not finished it would not be proper for me to criticise it finally. . .'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Sheet

Thomas Lloyd Humberstone : article on Sir John Gorst

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Sheet

H. G. Wells : The First Men on the Moon

'I have read [The First Men on the Moon] in Strand, & hasten to insult & annoy you by stating that the last two instalments are among the very best things you have done. I have read Anticipations in Fortnightly, & hasten to say that I have been absolutely overwhelmed by the breadth & the sheer intellectual vigour of them, not to mention the imaginative power. These articles really have made me a little afraid of you.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

unknown : Review of H.G. Wells' The First Men on the Moon

'I gather from a review that the conclusion of the book has not been printed in the Fortnightly?& this the most interesting part of the book. For this reason I should like the book. I had meant to buy it (sinning against my principle of never buying new books), but if I can get it for nothing I can put the price into the missionary box.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Fr Graz : in Die Zeit

'With my London-Matric knowledge of German I have struggled through the appreciation of you in 'Die Zeit.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

George Douglas (pseud. of George Douglas Brown, 1869-1902) : The House with the Green Shutters

'Have you read the fist Realistic Scotch Novel?The House with the Green Shutters? It is not first class but it is glorious after Barrie, Maclaren, Crockett & Co. You see Scotland in it for the first time in your life.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

: The Literary Year Book

'. . . I do not at the moment see how I can be of advantage to a Schoolmaster's Year Book. I think fancy articles are a mistake in a Year Book. You want nothing but serious informative or practically speculative stuff, all of it strictly topical & expert. In the Literary Year Book the Editor has made a grave error by introducing miscellaneous articles which are not informative & have nothing to do with the year. '

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

James Boswell : Life of Johnson

'Just now I am reading nightly in bed Boswell?s "Life of Johnson". I suppose you know it by heart. Without doubt it is the most agreeable & diverting thing in non-imaginative literature in English.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

George Sturt : Some Peasant Women

''I am glad to be able to praise your article in this month?s Cornhill with less reserve than you praise my novel.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

H. G. Wells : Mankind in the Making

"Many thanks for 'Mankind in the Making'. Like 'Anticipations' it is very wonderful, and very uneven."

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

: Vice in the Potteries: Shocking Details

'When I landed at Newhaven a few days ago, the first printed thing that caught my eye was a newspaper placard: "Vice in the Potteries: Shocking Details." It was a London newspaper. Soon afterwards I learnt about the "crusade" of the Honourable and Reverend Leonard Tyrwhitt.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: newspaper placard

H. G. Wells : The Food of the Gods

'Just before leaving Paris I read the first instalment of "F. of G." in Pearson?s & thought it extremely good, barring a few minime verbal infelicities. It cost me 2 francs to buy the number, but I couldn?t resist it.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Joseph Conrad : Romance

'I do not think "Romance" is good. In fact it isn?t & I don?t care who knows it. Ever read Dostoevsky?s Crime and Punishment? English translation damnable; but it is a novel. I?m just reading it again.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Fyodor Dostoyevsky : Crime and Punishment

'I do not think "Romance" is good. In fact it isn?t & I don?t care who knows it. Ever read Dostoevsky?s "Crime and Punishment"? English translation damnable; but it is a novel. I?m just reading it again.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

H. G. Wells : The Country of the Blind

'And that reminds me that your last Strand story was really admirable. A little faint towards the end I thought, but fundamentally damn good. '

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

H. G. Wells : Scepticism of the Instrument

'I am disposed to agree with your own estimate of "Scepticism of the Instrument". I don?t, however, think that your third indictment of the instrument is quite new.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett

H. G. Wells : Scepticism of the Instrument

"I am disposed to agree with your own estimate of 'Scepticism of the Instrument'. I don?t, however, think that your third indictment of the instrument is quite new."

Unknown

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett

H. G. Wells : A Modern Utopia

'Many thanks for the book. [A Modern Utopia.] If it was a novel I could say something useful about it, but as it isn?t, I don?t know that I can. The latter half of it is much more convincing & suggestive than the first half, & is also better done, but all of it is better than "Mankind in the Making".'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

H. G. Wells : Kipps

'The only real seizable fault that I can find in Kipps is the engagement to Helen, which entirely failed to convince me. . . . After agreeing with myself that I read the thing all through with eagerness & joy, and after telling myself that I must not expect in your "human interest" novels those aspects of life which you either can?t see or disdain to see, I find myself asking what this book "proves" & not getting any answer.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

H. G. Wells : 'The Schoolmaster and the Empire

'. . . By the way your Westminster Gazette article was magnificent, & filled me with holy joy.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

H. G. Wells :

'. . . now I see the announcement of your articles in the Tribune . . . '

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Advertisement, Serial / periodical

H. G. Wells : unknown

'Your Chicago article was very good.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Arnold Bennett : Whom God Hath Joined

'. . . every evening after dinner he read "Whom God Hath Joined" . . . to Agnes and me. [Eleanor Green] I remember objecting to the daughter in the book, giving her father away . . . and having a heated argument with the author in consequence.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: or published book?

Bart Kennedy : America Revisited

'What price Bart Kennedy on America in the Daily Mail?'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Newspaper

H. G. Wells : In the Days of the Comet

'And you never will persuade the people who don?t matter that the close of the 'Comet' is not profoundly immoral.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Unknown

Benjamin Constant : Adolphe

'I feel that I can struggle on without Madame de Stael; but 'Adolphe' is an undiluted masterpiece.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Unknown

: New Age

'Many thanks for your letter & the 2 numbers. I think the paper is very interesting.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

unknown : review of 'The Real India'

'The N.A. is not advocating immediately practical ideas. It is preparing opinion for ideas which will in future be practical. I think it is a devilish good paper. Read the review of Rees book on India in this week?s. '

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Nevile Foster : The Universal Machine

'I have just read Mr. Nevile Foster?s first article on The Universal Machine, which is chiefly a criticism of some of my articles.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

: Depeche de Toulouse

'. . . for a month past I have been travelling in the South and have read no paper, almost, except the "D?peche de Toulouse".'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Newspaper

H. G. Wells : First and Last Things

'I am reading "1st & Last" which arrived a few days ago. As it isn?t a novel I can?t pontificate on it. However, when I have digested it I shall give you my ideas. There is not doubt whatever that it is a great deal too short, a very great deal.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Frank Harris : The Bomb

'Orage has sent me your communication as to Frank Harris. Naturally I was the reviewer. Harris was much moved by the review, & came down to see me. He is certainly one of the most extraordinary men I ever met.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

H.G. Wells : Tono Bungay

'I wish I hadn?t read the first part of 'Tono-Bungay' so often. I shall have to read it yet again in order to get the hang of the last part.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book, proofs of novel

Edward Garnett : review of 'The Old Wives' Tale'

'Dear Edward Garnett, (For I suppose it is you who have written the very masterly review of my novel in the Nation.)...'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Mrs Laurence Binyon : Nineteenth Century Prose

'Do you know the prose of Wilfred Whitten? If not read pp. 229-30 of Mrs. Laurence Binyon?s Nineteenth Century Prose (Methuens, 1907).'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Edward Garnett : introductions to novels by Turgenev

'Your introductions to Turgenev?s novels were an event in my history?if that interests you.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Frank Harris : Shakespeare and his Love

'I made the mistake of reading your Shakespeare play before your Shakespeare criticism. So I had to read the play again. I cannot expertly criticize the critical book because I don?t know enough. . . . What of Coleridge I have ever had the patience to read is not to be compared to it.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Unknown

Frank Harris : The Man Shakespeare

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Unknown

S.T. Coleridge : Shakesperian Criticism (?)

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Frank Harris : Unpath'd Waters

'I got your book & letter this morning, & another letter on Friday. To my regret I have already swallowed the book, & as we go to Switzerland tomorrow . . . I write at once. I think the book in the main wonderful, & I read it greedily.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Anatole France : The Procurator of Judaea

'Has it ever occurred to you what a fine story, really, "The Procurator of Judaea" might have been if Anatole France had possessed in any degree the gift of construction?'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

El?mir Bourges : La Nef

'I violently disagree with you as to El?mir Bourges. I defy you to put your hand on your heart & say you have read the 'Nef' all through.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Frank Harris : The Man Shakespeare

'He [Frank Harris] has written a book drawing the character of Shakespeare from the plays. Part of it has been privately printed, & it seems to me the most remarkable exegetical work of the kind ever done.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

John Galsworthy : The Country House

'I have also been making a study of "The Country House". You are one of the most cruel writers that ever wrote English. This statement I will die for. I don't know what made me read the book again . . . I need not inform you that I tinglingly admire your stuff and it enormously "intrigues" me. But I do seriously object to your attitude towards your leading characters.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Cedric Sharpe : Song

'The receipt of your song gave me very great pleasure. I cannot criticize it. In fact it took me all my time to read it, as I cannot easily decipher musical MS.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Sheet

Arnold Bennett : Helen with the High Hand

'There is only one trouble about the proofs. That is: the title is wrong. (This not your fault, but some copyist?s.) It ought to be Helen with the High Hand. I really want this "with". I cannot imagine how the mistake arose. I shall put headings to the chapters, as I think these make a book more readable.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Codex

Ren Ghil : unknown

'I don?t see how poetry can be "orchestral". I have only read a few things of Ren? Ghil?s. I am all for Verhaeren.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Emile Verhaeren : unknown

'I don?t see how poetry can be "orchestral". I have only read a few things of Ren? Ghil?s. I am all for Verhaeren.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

: Westminster Gazette

'And when you produced your really adorable notice of "What the Public Wants", I more than ever wanted to fall on your neck.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Edmund Rostand : unknown

'There is nothing whatever of serious or permanent value in anything that Rostand ever wrote.'

Unknown

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett

: Manchester Guardian

'I must say the various editions of the M.G. are a deep mystery. Yesterday in the "London" edition, not a word (except the picture) about "Elektra"! And today not a word about "Justice". Perhaps it was the Timbuctoo edition that they sent me. But it is rather trying to the faithful.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Newspaper

Hermann Sudermann : The Song of Songs

'I have already [read] The Song of Songs , and commented on it, a long time ago. As to the translation let me tell you at once what I think. It is a bad translation . . . '

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

H. G. Wells : The New Machiavelli

'The New M is a magnificent work.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

William Dean Howells : 'Easy Chair' column

'Hence I give myself the pleasure of writing to you in order to acknowledge your "Easy Chair" article in this month?s Harper?s.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Andre Gide : Nouveaux Pr?textes

'I am particularly glad to have, from you, your new book, with its inscription. I thank you very much. For years I have known a number of your friends, and of course I have been reading your books for a long time; so that I feel that somehow we ought to have been acquainted before this. What pleases me particularly in a book like "The New Pretexts" (I had already read a great deal of it in reviews etc.) is the proof it offers that an artist is interesting himself in the daily guerrilla of literature.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Upton Sinclair : Love's Pilgrimage

'I have read your prodigious & all-embracing "Love?s Pilgrimage". I should very strongly resent its being censored in England. It deals candidly, here and there, with sundry aspects of life which are not usually dealt with in English fiction, but which are dealt with quite as a matter of course in the fiction of all other countries except the United States.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

: Spectator

'I anticipate that you will permit me to say a very few words about the article in your last issue criticizing the editorial conduct of the "English Review"'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

unknown : Hortulus Anime

'I am obliged to you for the "Hortulus Anime". I have not had time to examine it carefully, but so far as I have seen it is an admirable piece of work & I congratulate you on it. I send by parcel post two other jobs: One is "Roget?s Thesaurus". This is a book that I use every day, fairly roughly. Please bind it how you like, bearing this rough & constant usage in mind.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Dr Peter Mark Roget : Thesaurus

'I send by parcel post two other jobs: One is "Roget?s Thesaurus". This is a book that I use every day, fairly roughly. Please bind it how you like, bearing this rough & constant usage in mind.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

: Figaro

'The only account that I have seen of the accident, in the "Figaro", is inaccurate in every detail except the number of wounded.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Newspaper

Andr Gide : Isabelle

'Many thanks for your letter and the book. I read the book at once, d?un trait. This is praise, I think! It reminds me of "Dominique".'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Eugene Fromentin : Dominique

'Many thanks for your letter and the book. I read the book at once, d?un trait. This is praise, I think! It reminds me of "Dominique".'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Alexis Saint-L?ger L?ger : Eloges

'I have got the plaquette of St. L?ger L?ger?s poems. Very interesting. The St. Catherine?s Press is terrible for misprints!'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Henry Fielding : Tom Jones

"Je relis 'Tom Jones'. En effet, c'est ?patant". [I am re-reading "Tom Jones". In fact, it is astonishing']

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

W.D. Howells : unknown

'It may astonish you to learn that even thirty years ago?and more?"Harper?s" used to penetrate monthly into the savage wilderness of the Five Towns, and that the first literary essays I ever read were those of W.D. Howells and Russell Lowell.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Russell Lowell : unknown

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

: Punch

'In reply to Mr. Archer?s letter, the authors? procedure, as regards the year 1860, was this. They practically read through the whole of Punch for that year, and chose a number of conversational phrases from its dialogues. They were much struck by the prevalence in 1850 of phrases which they had imagined to be quite modern.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

H. G. Wells : Marriage

'I return the proofs by registered bookpost. I have read them with care. I have of course confined my observations to misprints, punctuation, points of phraseology, & sentences of which I absolutely failed to grasp the meaning.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Codex

H.G. Wells : Marriage

'By the way, Wells?s new novel 'Marriage', of which I have just read the proofs, contains more intimate conveyances of the atmosphere of married life than anybody has ever achieved before.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Codex, proofs

: La Nouvelle Revue Francaise

'I think you should like 'La Nouvelle Revue Francaise' (31 Rue Jacob, Paris. 1 fr 50c. monthly). The critical articles at the end are always quite first class, & much of the creative stuff is admirable.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

: Royal Literary Fund annual report

'A copy of the latest annual report of the Royal Literary Fund was recently forwarded to me from headquarters, and I have been studying its accounts.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: report

Charles Sarolea : 'Everyman' magazine

'I have been reading the singular article on myself, signed ?C.S.?, in your first issue.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Guy de Maupassant : La Maison Tellier

'The subject of "La Maison Tellier" is the licensed brothel and its inmates'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Joseph Conrad : Nostromo

'I read 'Higuerota' again not long since, I always think of that book as 'Higuerota', the said mountain being the principal personage in the story, When I first read it I thought it the finest novel of this generation (bar none), and I am still thinking so.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Joseph Conrad : The Secret Agent

'. . . when I recall the quiet domestic scenes behind the shop in 'The Secret Agent' here is rather the sort of thing I reckon to handle myself?but I respectfully retire from the comparison. What I chiefly like in your books of 'Reminiscences' is the increasing sardonic quality of them?the rich veins of dark and glittering satire and sarcasm. There was a lot of it, too, in the latter half of 'Under Western Eyes'. I must tell you that I think the close of ?The Secret Sharer? about as fine as anything you?ve ever done. Overwhelmingly strong and beautiful.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Joseph Conrad : Under Western Eyes

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Joseph Conrad : The Secret Sharer

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

George Meredith : Letters vol 1

'Moreover I have been reading Meredith's letters - undoubtedly one of the masterpieces of English literature -especially the 1st vol.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

H.G. Wells : The Passionate Friends

'I return the proofs. As before, all suggestions are tentative. . . .I should judge it to be rather better thatn Marriage?certainly more homogeneous?& about as good as the New M . . . '

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: BookManuscript: Codex, proofs of book

unknown : unknown

'. . . I send you a book which I picked up as a bargain in the catalogue of a second-hand bookseller, You will see that under the headings of the different countries it gives on each double page a complete conspectus of all important events which happened during a given period. I consider it a work which is absolutely invaluable to the novelist who deals, however indirectly or briefly, with any past period, And I have used it constantly ever since I bought a copy of the original publication about twelve years ago.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

John Squire : The Three Hills

'I was glad to see your hand, as it forced me to write to you. About 5 or 6 weeks ago I had the impulse to write to you about the high satisfaction I had from your last book, but with the base indifference that sometimes paralyses the most ardent souls, I simply did not write. Your poetry gives me real pleasure.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Laurent Tailhade : Poemes aristophanesques

'I recommend to you Laurent Tailhade. (Such trifles as ?Place des Victoires? which I would give my head to have written originally in English.)'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Samuel Butler : The Way of all Flesh

'You shock me. Not by liking "The Way of all Flesh", but by liking "The Devil?s Garden" and "Fortitude" . . . . it is not excusable to lose your head about badness or mediocrity. About "The Devil?s Garden" there is nothing to be said, it simply does not exist. "Fortitude" is by a man who has written one real book ("Mr, Perrin & Mr. Traill") , but "Fortitude" is undoubtedly a failure.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

W.B. Maxwell : The Devil's Garden

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Hugh Walpole : Fortitude

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Hugh Walpole : Mr Perrin and Mr Traill

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

H. G. Wells : The Passionate Friends

'You have been looking for the wrong things in "The Passionate Friends", & failing to see the right things.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

John Galsworthy : The Dark Flower

'I like "The Dark Flower" very much, & wrote to tell Galsworthy so?a thing I have never done before about a book of his, though he is a friend of mine.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

C.L. Philippe : Bubu de Montparnasse

'It seems to me you had better read some good novels in which there is no slush nor tush. You might read "Bubu de Montparnasse", by C.L. Philippe (if you haven?t already done so), and "Dans les rues", by J.H. Rosny ain?.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

J.H. Rosny : Dans les rues

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

: The New Statesman

'In your issue of August 29th, reviewing war literature, you say: "Almost without exception during the last fortnight our eminent novelists have rushed into print as authorities on all matters of foreign policy and military strategy." Can you name these novelists?'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

: Manchester Guardian

'As to applicants having received better treatment from Poor Law Guardians than from the Fund, My authority was a detailed article dealing with the condition of affairs in Manchester published in the Manchester Guardian of the 11th inst.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Newspaper

Abel Hermant : Confessions d'un homme d'aujourdhui

'I have nearly finished "Confession d?un homme d?aujourd?hui". It is very good and helped me to pass a difficult Sunday.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

: New Statesman

'How soon are you going to use that contribution by my friend Miss Pauline Smith? I think that last week?s issue was an excellent one.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Theodore Dreiser : The Genius

'I think "The Genius" is a pretty good book.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Hugh Walpole : The Dark Forest

'Many thanks for the inscribed D.F. ['The Dark Forest'] Overwork has delayed me much with it. I thought the opening rather vague and lacking in direction ? due no doubt to "recency" (a new word) of the impressions. However the book gathers force. By the time it finishes it is the best book of yours since Mr P & Mr. T.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Charles Shaw : When I was a Child

'Thank you for sending me a copy of the United Methodist containing the article "Books and Bookmen", which deals with the close resemblances between an episode in Charles Shaw?s anonymous book, "When I was a Child" and an episode in Clayhanger. Let me remark that I am a fairly regular student of the columns of the United Methodist and other denominational organs, and I only wish that certain papers of a different stamp showed as keen an interest in literature as you do. As soon as I heard of it I bought the book with the full intention of using it if I could, as I have bought and used scores of historical books bearing on the district or period in which I happened as a novelist to be interested.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

: United Methodist

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Stuart P. Sherman : [article on Arnold Bennett]

'In the issue for December 23rd, 1915 of the NewYork "Nation" there is an extremely fine article on me by Stuart P. Sherman. On the whole I regard it as the best article I have seen on the subject. I should very much like to have seen this article reprinted, either with other by the same hand or alone, but I suppose that there is no chance of this.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltuikov : The Golovleff Family

'I don?t know whether the translation from the Russian, "The Golovleff Family", (published by Knopf out your way) is any good, but the book is great. I read it twice in French.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

H.G. Wells : Mr Britling Sees It Through

'I like this book very much. ["Mr. Britling Sees It Through"] It is extremely original & sympathetic, & the scenes that ought to be the best are the best. In fact it is an impressive work. . . . P.S. You will doubtless find some of the corrections quite inadmissible. They are all simply suggestions. A.B.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

E.H. Anstruther : The Farm Servant

'I have at length had an opportunity to read "The Farm Servant". At first I thought it wasn?t going to be anything very particular, but it began to hold me soon afterwards.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Theodore Dreiser : The Financier

'And I have read Dreiser?s "The Financier", which I could never get hold of till the other day. This book, despite its dreadful slovenliness in details of phrase, is an extremely remarkable affair indeed. It gave me intense pleasure. This is praise. I wish I knew Dreiser intimately. Wells?s new novel is very fine.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

: 'Literary Notes and News'

'In your "Literary Notes and News" of Monday you state that George Smith paid Browning ?12,500 for the first five years? rights in The Ring and the Book. It is just as well that this munificent printer?s error should be set right at once. The sum was ?1,250.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

: Westminster Gazette

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Frank Harris : Oscar Wilde: His Life and Confessions

'Have you read Frank Harris?s privately published Life & Confessions of Oscar Wilde? It is a strange & powerful book, written by a man who is a curious mixture of impulses noble and ignoble. I am just finishing it. The best things I have read for ages are the Chekhov short stories in the new complete edition (2 vols out) published here by Chatto & Windus, translated by the eternal Constance Garnett. These stories are unmatched.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Anton Chekhov : The Tales of Tchehov

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Patrick MacGill : The Great Push

'I think MacGill has written one or two excellent things on the Push. [Patrick MacGill, The Great Push , 1916] I do want you to realise that intelligent people here, though civilian, well understand that most of the stuff printed in the dailies about the army is largely tosh.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Robert Halifax : He Looked in my Window

'You ought to read "He looked in my Window" by Robert Halifax (publ. by Chatto & Windus). It is really remarkable.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Frank Swinnerton : Nocturne

'A slight work, but just about perfect. In fact I do not know how to find fault with it. ["Nocturne", 1917] . . . And I left off "Wuthering Heights" in order to read it, which was a fairly clear test. (Never read W.H. before. Very fine.) . . . Marguerite is now reading "Nocturne", confound her!'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Emily Bronte : Wuthering Heights

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Samuel Butler : Notebooks

'I am extremely busy & my novel isn?t getting a fair chance. I solace myself with the "note books" of Samuel Butler.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Clifford Beer : A Mind That Found Itself

'I forgot in my last letter to say that I found Beer’s book very good, certainly useful to me. [Clifford Beer, "A Mind That Found Itself"]. . . . By the way, have you read "A Theory of the Leisure Class"? It is a wonderful book, damnably written.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Voltaire : Candide

'I understand from Mr. Bagguley that it is you who are the craftsman of the binding of the "Candide" which he has been so kind as to give me. Will you allow me to offer you my most sincere congratulations on your extraordinary art?'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Hugh Walpole : Fortitude

'I don’t think I have concealed from you my opinion that "Fortitude" and "The Duchess" [The Duchess of Wrexe] are not on a level with the other three. [Mr Perrin and Mr Traill (1911), The Dark Forest (1916) and The Green Mirror (1918)]. But this unlevelness does not worry me in the least. It is constantly found in the greatest novelists, and is natural & inevitable.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Hugh Walpole : The Duchess of Wrexe

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Joseph Conrad : Victory

'I do not think that "Victory" is anything like equal to "Chance". In fact it is not first-rate Conrad, "Chance" is. "Bealby" I have never read. Wells sends me all his books; but he didn’t send "Bealby" along, and I lost the list and didn’t get it.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Joseph Conrad : Chance

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

H. G. Wells : Bealby

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Thucydides : [Histories]

'Spender [J.A. Spender, editor of the Westminster Gazette] has recently introduced me to Thucydides & I think he is the greatest of all historians. Indeed I need say no more than that if I wrote history this is the way I should write it.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Gustave Flaubert : L'Education Sentimentale

'I doubt if you ought to call France & Flaubert "dry". "L’Education Sentimentale" ought to be read with ease. Ditto "Thais", & "La Rotisserie". Personally, though, I think France over-rated. You ought to read "Bubu de Montparnasse" of Charles Louis Philippe. This is a great little novel, one of the finest modern French novels. I think "Coeur simple" is the best thing Flaubert ever wrote, except his correspondence, which is his best work, & ought to be read. I tell you that Lytton Strachey’s "Eminent Victorians" is a most juicy & devastating affair, I thoroughly enjoyed it.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Gustave Flaubert : Un Coeur Simple

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Anatole France : La Rotisserie de la reine Pédauque

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Anatole France : Thais

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Charles Louis Philippe : Bubu de Montparnasse

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Lytton Strachey : Eminent Victorians

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Charles Dickens : Nicholas Nickleby

'The weather is damnable, especially when one has neither car nor taxi. I read ¼ of "Nicholas Nickleby" yesterday because I had no brain left. It wasn’t so bad in its crude, posterish way. Anyhow, it could be read.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

T. S. Eliot : unknown

'I have pleasure in stating that Mr. T.S. Eliot (whom I understand to be a candidate for a commission in the Quartermasters or Interpreters Corps) has an intimate knowledge of the French language. Also that he is a writer of distinguished merit, for whose work personally I have a great admiration.'

Unknown

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett

Spencer Wilkinson : Sunday Times articles

'Do you read the Sunday Times? It is a poor paper, but has great military articles by Spenser Wilkinson, one of the foremost European authorities. This man does not in the least hide his notions about the running of the British Army by the old cavalry crew at the War Office.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Newspaper

Dorothy M. Richardson : Backwater

'Have you read Dolly Richardson’s "Backwater"? If not, do. It is a book.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

H. G. Wells : The Soul of a Bishop

'This is a very good number. The Wells review seems most just, but I haven’t yet finished the book. [The Soul of a Bishop]'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

: The New Statesman

'This is a very good number. [The New Statesman]. The Wells review seems most just, but I haven’t yet finished the book. [The Soul of a Bishop]'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Frank Swinnerton : Shops and Houses

'I should have read S.& H. [Shops and Houses] earlier, despite J. & P. , but I couldn’t get the book off Marguerite. Conjugal unpleasantness became so acute on the point that I was obliged to buy a second copy. I think this book shows marked development on the part of the author. There are about 150 pp. as good as the very best few pages of "On the Staircase", & some much better.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Frank Swinnerton : On the Staircase

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

E.V. Lucas : The Sane Star

'Pardon my frankness. This is most distinctly an idea for a play. And you have put everything into it except the play. [The Sane Star]... Play returned herewith. A.B.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Unknown

: National News

'I have just seen (quoted in the National News) the following extract from "Gerald Cumberland’s" A Book of Reminiscences. . .'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

H.G. Wells : The Soul of a Bishop

'This is a very good number. [New Statesman] The Wells review seems most just, but I haven’t yet finished the book. [The Soul of a Bishop]'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Frank Swinnerton : Shops and Houses

'I should have read S.& H. ["Shops and Houses"] earlier, despite J. & P. , but I couldn’t get the book off Marguerite. Conjugal unpleasantness became so acute on the point that I was obliged to buy a second copy. I think this book shows marked development on the part of the author. There are about 150 pp. as good as the very best few pages of On the Staircase, & some much better.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Hugh Walpole : The Secret City

'It appeareth to me that you have attempted the impossible in 'The Secret City'. Therefore be not surprised if I think you have not achieved the same.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

R.S. Surtees : Mr Sponge's Sporting Tour

'I am reading 'Mr. Sponge’s Sporting Tour'. Rather good.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

W. Somerset Maugham : The Moon and Sixpence

'I return "The Moon and Sixpence" and your criticism. I agree with your criticism but I do not think that you have laid sufficient [? stress] on the positive qualities of the book. Any how, I read it with interest, and I think the Tahiti chapters are really very good. Also the man has a sardonic crude humour which pleaseth me.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

: New Statesman

'I regret that you have given up the "New Statesman". The old editor has returned from the war & the paper is in its best form.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Frank Swinnerton : September

re: 'September' 'This work is admirably conceived and just about perfectly constructed . . . It is incomparably the best novel by an author under 40 that I have read since 'The Rainbow', and of course vastly superior to that in technical qualities.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

: New Statesman

'Have you read the 'New Statesman' this week? If not, read it. I take pride in the fact that I more than anybody else kept that paper alive during the war.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

G. B. Shaw : Heartbreak House, Great Catherine, and Playlets About the War

'Speaking of the drama, you should read the preface to Shaw’s new book of plays. As a journalistic performance it is of the very highest order. Nobody can state a case like this fellow.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

: London Mercury

'I have now perused the L.M.I. & will inflict my views on you. It is on the whole what I should call a "sound" number – good, considering that it is a first number. . . . Nichols’s story is fair . . . I assume that the insertion of the Gosse article was chiefly politic. It does not seem to me to possess any positive merit. The Lynd & the Stobart are both A1 Alice leaves me cold. I think you did a lot of the poetry reviews, & I expect they are quite all right . . . Thibaudet is really excellent, much better than I thought he would be.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

George Moore : Avowals

'George Moore’s 'Avowals' is highly agreeable.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

H. G. Wells : The Outline of History

'The more I read of H.G.’s 'Outline' the more staggered I am by it.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

: London Mercury

'There is no particular talk in this house except the slump in theatres, & the general & increasing badness of the 'London Mercury'. I find the L.M. very dull & pompous.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

: Nation

‘Wayfarer’ expresses the ignorance of himself and his friends about the late Charles Garvice . . . He brackets Charles Garvice and Mrs Florence Barclay together. This he should not do. Charles Garvice had an immensely greater hold on the public than Mrs, Barclay . . . The work of Charles Garvice has little artistic importance; but he was a thoroughly competent craftsman.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Charles Garvice : unknown

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Florence Barclay : unknown

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

George Moore : Avowals

'. . . There have been 2 supreme books since your regretted departure. G. Moore’s 'Avowals' and the letters of Chekhov . . .'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Anton Chekhov : Letters

. . . There have been 2 supreme books since your regretted departure. G. Moore’s 'Avowals' and the letters of Chekhov . . .

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Lord Byron : Don Juan

'Byron was a great genius. 'Don' Juan is a terrific work. But there is scarcely a page of it which does not show that an artistic conscience was not Byron’s strong point. . . . Not long since I re-read Quentin Durward. What a book of hasty expedients, adroit evasions of difficulties, and artistic ‘slimness’. '

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Sir Walter Scott : Quentin Durward

'Byron was a great genius. 'Don' Juan is a terrific work. But there is scarcely a page of it which does not show that an artistic conscience was not Byron’s strong point. . . . Not long since I re-read 'Quentin Durward'. What a book of hasty expedients, adroit evasions of difficulties, and artistic ‘slimness’.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Mary Berenson : [article on C18th architecture]

'Mrs Mary Berenson’s article on eighteenth century architecture in Spain most interestingly illustrates a principle which is capable of wide application. Our attitude towards architecture is far too much dominated by the aesthetic canons of the past.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

: Economic Review of the Foreign Press

'I enclose in this envelope a copy of the 'Economic Review of the Foreign Press'. . . . I know the periodical very well as I have read it consistently for over three years.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

: Times Literary Supplement

'Can’t something be done to buck up the 'Lit. Suppl'.? It is getting duller & duller, though it always contains 1 or 2 good articles.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Philip Gibbs : Realities of War

I do not agree with you as to Gibbs’ book. . . . I have not yet seen a good war book. Doyle if course is ridiculous. I am sending you a copy of 'Polite Farces' by this post, It is no good, but as you want it you shall have it.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Arthur Conan Doyle : The British Campaign in France and Flanders

'I do not agree with you as to Gibbs’ book. . . . I have not yet seen a good war book. Doyle if course is ridiculous. I am sending you a copy of 'Polite Farces' by this post, It is no good, but as you want it you shall have it. '

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Henri Beyle [Stendhal] : Lucien Leuwen

'I have read 100 pages of 'L. Leuwen'. [Lucien Leuwen] It is exceedingly fine, but I don’t yet class it with 'La Chartreuse'.[La Chartreuse de Parme]

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Henri Beyle [Stendhal] : La Chartreuse de Parme

'I have read 100 pages of 'L. Leuwen'. [Lucien Leuwen] It is exceedingly fine, but I don’t yet class it with 'La Chartreuse'.[La Chartreuse de Parme]

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

André Gide : Isabelle

'Have you read 'The Pretty Lady'? It was while reading 'Isabelle' that the form of this novel suddenly presented itself to me, and I began to write it at once. Yet nothing could be less like calm 'Isabelle' than this feverish novel.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Hugh Walpole : The Captives

'It seems to me that I have to write to you in the same nagging strain as I do to Wells, In spite of my brotherly admonitions & my fatherly threats apropos of previous books there are at least as many grammatical slips in this one as in any. . . . Such, imperfectly, respectfully, & fragmentarily are my views about this history which you have so affectionately dedicated to the aged one. There are lots of questions I want to ask you about it. Will you dine Thursday 21st?'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Robert Nichols : Guillty Souls

'About 2/3rds of this play is undoubtedly very fine. I think it weakens in structure in the 3rd act. . . . I only met the dedication tonight. Thanks. It is very agreeable to me.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: completed draft of play

George Moore : A Mummer's Wife

'. . . and I wish to tell you that it was the first chapters of 'A Mummer’s Wife' which opened my eyes to the romantic nature of the district that I had blindly inhabited for over twenty years. You are indeed the father of all my Five Towns books.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Ethel Smyth : Streaks of Life

Pardon my forwardness, but I must tell you I think that 'Streaks' is another what-I-call-a-book. In fact I should say it is better than 'Impressions'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Ethel Smyth : Impressions that Remained

Pardon my forwardness, but I must tell you I think that 'Streaks' is another what-I-call-a-book. In fact I should say it is better than 'Impressions'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

: Express

I am glad to see that today you give some figures to show what the coal strike is really about. The public seldom knows what a strike is about. . . No paper gives impartial and full labour news, and the worst sinner is the 'Daily Herald'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Newspaper

: Daily Herald

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Newspaper

: Daily Mail

It is 1,000 pities the 'Express' didn’t get the Wells Washington stuff. His first 3 articles in the 'Mail' have been absolutely tremendous.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Newspaper

Hugh Walpole : The Young Enchanted

Your novel ['The Young Enchanted'] shows once more your most genuine and even devilish gift for narrative. By God you can tell a story! Also the first half of the book is full of charming things, excellent bits of observation and fancy, new gleams of light on the world, But, also by God, I will not hide from you my conviction that the book does not improve as it goes on . . . . The mere details of writing I think are better than in 'The Captives'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

James Joyce : Ulysses

I have just borrowed a copy of 'Ulysses'. It appears to me to be jolly good, and it is certainly the most obscene genuine literature ever published, not excepting Juvenal and Co.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

: Grand Larousse

Pontigny is not marked in the largest and best English atlas. But I had the wit to look for it in the 'Grand Larousse'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

H Hamer [anon] : Roasted Angels

I have read 'Roasted Angels' and I now return it. It is a very unusual and even a very remarkable play. It is full of wit and fancy and most admirably written. I should like to know who H. Hamer is. He, or she, must have been writing for quite some little time.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett

Marcel Proust : Du Coté chez Swann

I have been re-reading 'Du Côté.' Well, it is marvellous. I have also been re-reading 'Anna Karenina'. Well, it is more marvellous. I have also been re-reading 'Les Frères'. Well, it is most marvellous. Das ist das.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Leo Tolstoy : Anna Karenina

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Fyodor Dostoyevsky : Les Freres Karamazov

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Victor Margueritte : La Garconne

I have not read 'La Garçonne'. I got about half way through it and then I had to give up, not because of its indecency but because it its dullness, poorness, and badness. The indecency is only episodic, but I have never read such indecency in the work of a reputable author published by a reputable firm. . . . It has also to be remembered that M. Margueritte has written, whether alone or in collaboration with his late brother, several novels of genuine importance, such as 'Le Désastre'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Paul Margueritte : Le Désastre

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

W.B. Maxwell : Spinster of this Parish

'I wrote a fatherly letter to Hughie & told him the error of his ways & also that I didn’t like 'The Cath'. well enough even to say anything about it to him at all. . . I had the happy idea of reading the McLauchlin trial, one of the most captivating of the Hodge series, & found it full of small useful ‘sordid’ details of daily life in a small house. The old grandfather (87) trying to get into bed with the servant, & refusing to go away when she wanted to make water (after he’d tried to murder her). A1 stuff. . . . Look here, I’ve exchanged books with W. B. Maxwell, & read 'Spinster of This Parish'. The opening of it is a masterly exposition of narrative - the sort of thing Hughie would like to do but can’t. '

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Hugh Walpole : The Cathedral

I wrote a fatherly letter to Hughie & told him the error of his ways & also that I didn’t like 'The Cath'. well enough even to say anything about it to him at all. . . I had the happy idea of reading the McLauchlin trial, one of the most captivating of the Hodge series, & found it full of small useful ‘sordid’ details of daily life in a small house. The old grandfather (87) trying to get into bed with the servant, & refusing to go away when she wanted to make water (after he’d tried to murder her). A1 stuff. . . . Look here, I’ve exchanged books with W. B. Maxwell, & read 'Spinster of This Parish'. The opening of it is a masterly exposition of narrative - the sort of thing Hughie would like to do but can’t.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

: Notable British Trials

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Arnold Bennett : Some Impressions of my Elders

Many thanks for the book on Methuselahs. ['Some Impressions of my Elders']Shame to say, I’ve only read myself in it yet! The one point on which I would seriously oppose you is your statement that old people who have mannerisms always had them. Briefly, this is not so. In consideration of the generosity & insight you display in dealing with me I overlook the lapse from verity.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Geoffrey Lapage : Tommy Fidler

I am obliged for your letter and the enclosures. I return all the latter, together with my report and adjudication. . . . In my opinion the three best contributions, in order of merit, are: 1. Tommy Fiddler By “Muda” [may have been Lapage] 2. From Bondage By “Cinna” [Geoffrey Bullough] 3. The Best Policy By Kate Simmonds.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Unknown

Geoffrey Bullough : From Bondage

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Unknown

Kate Simmonds : The Best Policy

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Unknown

H. G. Wells : Men Like Gods

.. . . I have no prejudice against the young, rather the reverse, and yet I am looking in vain for a really good novel by that generation, and 'Men Like Gods', with all its limitations, seems to me to contain more fundamental ‘stuff’ than anything else I have read for a long time. I am very disappointed with Lawrence, who appears to me to have genius concealed somewhere within him. Joyce has enormous power and originality, but he lacks the balance which is essential to great work. George Moore can write the heads off any of you, and he is nearly 70. I will tell you the men you need for your paper- Lynd, Forster, MacCarthy, Tomlinson. Get them.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

: Adelphi

Pardon a word of unsolicited criticism about your venture. I think the contents are pretty creditable, but I think that the material presentation leaves something to be desired. The page is not good, and the type is entirely without distinction. . . . Taken as a whole, the mere look of the review is extremely disappointing—even to the sinister colour of the cover.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

D.H. Lawrence : Trees and Babies and Papas and Mamas

The Lawrence is magnificent. Pity he is falling more & more into the trick of repeating a word or a phrase. It irritates the reader & enfeebles the sturff. Also the connection between trees & human beings is not very strong. But really this article is the goods. The Tomlinson article is also magnificent. Not better stuff than this is being done. The K.M. story is excellently characteristic. Mr. Joiner is good; it halts at the beginning. . . . I think the number is simply splendid—especially for a first number. & you are to be seriously & gravely congratulated upon it.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

H.M. Tomlinson : The Estuary

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

H.M. Tomlinson : The Estuary

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Katherine Mansfield : The Samuel Josephs

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

: Mr Joiner and the Bible

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Lord Byron : Don Juan

I have a wonderful miniature edition of Byron’s 'Don Juan', illustrated, for you, with a staggering Victorian preface. I am bound to say, with all my modesty, that it takes me to find these things.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Thomas Bodkin : Adrien van de Venne

It is not an article at all. [‘Adrien van de Venne’ in Studies (Dublin), June 1923] It is a romance, a drama, an epic; and puts you in the grande lignée des collectionneurs. I read it with greatest interest, and pride in you. I shall certainly not return it. I shall keep it to astound people with.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Robert Nichols : Golgotha & Co.

I’ll tell you what I think of ‘Golgotha’. I think it is a prodigious cataract of eloquence, managed with astonishing skill and verve, but too diffuse by far in its movement and somewhat naïve in its philosophy. Do you realise that the main ideas in it are the ideas that dominated such as myself 25 years ago? [Aldous Huxley] is a fine journalist, & I thought that the best things in 'On the Margin' were as good as such things could be. They were about equal to, though quite different from, the essays of that master, Robert Lynd.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Aldous Huxley : On the Margin

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

André Gide : Dostoevsky

Your book on Dostoevsky (for which many thanks) has made a very considerable impression upon me. And yet you say almost nothing about his technique, which interests me considerably . . . (If he had any technique!)

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Fyodor Dostoyevsky : The Eternal Husband

After reading what you said about 'The Eternal Husband', I read that story again. Je le trouve un peu manqué, surtout vers le fin.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

André Maurois : Ariel: ou la vie de Shelley

I will strive to let you have a note about André Maurois’s 'Ariel ou la vie de Shelley'. It is a very bright thing.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

: La Nouvelle Revue Francaise

Now as regards the 'N.R.F'., am I unjust? All I know is that under Copeau, I panted monthly for the 'N.R.F'. Under Rivière, I pass a fortnight before opening it. The foremost is fundamental and unanswerable literary criticism! Yes, I had read 'Clodomir l’assassin'. It was marvellous.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Marcel Jouhandeau : Clodomir l'assassin

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Mark Rutherford : The Novels of Mark Rutherford

'We have just had a new edition of the works of Hale White (Mark Rutherford). It is a miserable and ill-printed edition, but it exists, and I am reading him all over again. Hale White is a great writer who adopted a form which he never learnt how to use: the novel. His construction is usually naïf to the point of absurdity. But he is full of great stuff, and a most genuine stylist—one of the best, I think.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

: Express

My objection to the policy of the 'Express' of late is that I can’t understand it—nor have I met anyone else who can. Therefore, however good the policy may be, the paper fails as the vehicle of it. . . . Lastly I will mention the question of your recent headlines. Considering that the immense psychological effect of headlines is largely the creation of people like yourself, Blum, and the Harmsworths, I think the Express might handle headlines with greater care than apparently it has been doing.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Newspaper

Havelock Ellis : The Dance of Life

On your recommendation I have just bought 'The Dance of Life' and am reading it. It repayeth perusal, & I thank thee. (But I have been an admirer of Havelock for 30 years.)

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Frank Swinnerton : Young Felix

'I cannot understand the small sale of 'Felix' ['Young Felix'] in this bloody country.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Roger Martin du Gard : Jean Barois

I want you to tell R.M. du Gard how highly I esteem 'Barois'. When I first bought it, ages ago, I was so impressed by it that I had it charmingly bound, and I often read in it again. . . . I am very pleased with 'Amants, heureux amants', especially that last story; Valery’s best work, I think.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Valery Larbaud : Amants, heureux amants

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Valery Larbaud : Amants, heureux amants

I ought to have written to you before about 'Amants, heureux amants', which you were so kind as to send me. It is, in my opinion, a very fine book, highly distinguished, and certainly your best work. I enjoyed it immensely. Especially the last story, which throws light on many things—including yourself. We have no new young novelists in England. D.H. Lawrence is the best, & he is very uneven; also he is growing older. Of course there is Joyce. Your study of him was very useful to me when I wrote a review of 'Ulysses' some time ago. I think that he also is too uneven ever to be quite first-rate. But his best chapters amount to genius.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

James Joyce : Ulysses

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Pauline Smith : The Little Karoo

I have a collection of 8 short stories of hers, [Pauline Smith] all, in my opinion, fine. Middleton Murry would have published them in a small volume, but his publishing enterprise has not come to anything. I have been wondering whether you would care to publish them. . . . I ought to mention that Miss Smith is now at work on a novel, which, so far as I have read it, is at least as fine as the best things in the short stories.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Unknown

Pauline Smith : The Beadle

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Unknown

Maurice Baring : C

I offer you my sincere & almost violent congratulations on 'C'. I have been greatly impressed by it. It held me throughout its immense length.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Hubert Griffith : Tunnel Trench

I have now read 'Tunnel Trench'. The copy which you kindly gave me got lost—I don’t know how, but I obtained another one. . . . Of course the play is not ‘nice’ reading, and of course we who never went to the front in a fighting capacity hate to be reminded by those who did so go that there ever was a war. But all that does not matter. My criticism of the play, or of myself, would be that I cannot quite find the central moral idea upon which it is based.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

J.B. Priestley : Figures in Modern Literature

'Many thanks for so kindly sending me your book. Of course I read the essay on myself when it appeared in the Mercury. (One never misses these things.) Equally of course I did not agree with all of it, but at any rate I thought it very able...'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

J.B. Priestley :

Many thanks for so kindly sending me your book. Of course I read the essay on myself when it appeared in the 'Mercury'. (One never misses these things.) Equally of course I did not agree with all of it, but at any rate I thought it very able and I agree heartily with all the praise; also I thought that some of the animadversions were rather good.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Margaret Kennedy : The Constant Nymph

I think the 'C.N.' is fine. It is bound to make you respected among those whose respect alone is a comfort in moments of depression. For myself, I have been more impressed by it than by any novel from a new writer for years.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

L.G. Johnson : Arnold Bennett of the Five Towns

I venture to write a very few words about your book on me. It has given me great pleasure. . . . The book is incomparably better than Darton’s—at any rate than the first edition of Darton’s. I never read the second.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Frederick Joseph Harvey Darton : Arnold Bennett

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Philippe-August Villiers de L'Isle Adam : L'Eve Future

I do not know sufficient about Villiers de l’Isle Adam to advise you. His best known book is 'L’Eve Future'. I have read half of it twice, but could never get to the end of it. Axel (play) is another famous book of his but I have not read it. His short stories are very renowned indeed. Contes Cruels and Nouveaux Contes Cruels. I have read all these. I should say that they were pretty wonderful fifty or sixty years ago , but what they would look like in a translation I cannot predict.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Philippe-August Villiers de L'Isle Adam : L'Eve Future

I do not know sufficient about Villiers de l’Isle Adam to advise you. His best known book is 'L’Eve Future'. I have read half of it twice, but could never get to the end of it. 'Axel' (play) is another famous book of his but I have not read it. His short stories are very renowned indeed. 'Contes Cruels' and 'Nouveaux Contes Cruels'. I have read all these. I should say that they were pretty wonderful fifty or sixty years ago , but what they would look like in a translation I cannot predict.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Philippe-August Villiers de L'Isle Adam : Contes Cruels

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Philippe-August Villiers de L'Isle Adam : Nouveaux Contes Cruels

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Francis Hackett : That Nice Young Couple

Now my sweet Francis I have read your book in this Alpine district. . . . There is not, really, much fault to be found with 'T.N.Y.C.' It is well-constructed; and the pace is maintained; I mean it doesn’t flag.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Edward Knoblock : stories [unidentified]

I enclose 2 brief notes about your 2 stories. There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that you can produce excellent saleable stories. I have practically no fault to find with these technically.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Unknown

H. G. Wells : Christina Alberta's Father

I noticed strangely few misprints in 'C.A.’s Pa'. though I had my malicious eye open for them.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Max Beaverbrook : Politicians and the Press

I return the typescript of your book. ['Politicians and the Press'] You asked me to tell you whether I thought it was interesting. It is very interesting, and it is all interesting. But of course it is barefaced propaganda on behalf of the two 'Expresses'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: typescript

: unknown

I have new books by Maurice Baring, Sylvia Lynd, and W Gerhardi lying unread and they are all coming to dinner on the 17th inst.! And I shan’t have read anything of them by that time. I only read in bed, and before napping in the afternoon . . .

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Maurice Baring : Cat's Cradle

I’ve finished Baring’s 'Cat’s Cradle'. 770 large pages. Well, it isn’t so bad, though highly curious in technique. . . . I’m now reading Stendhal’s 'Promenades dans Rome'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Stendhal : Promenades dans Rome

I’ve finished Baring’s 'Cat’s Cradle'. 770 large pages. Well, it isn’t so bad, though highly curious in technique. . . . I’m now reading Stendhal’s 'Promenades dans Rome'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Maurice Baring : Cat's Cradle

I read C.C. ['Cat's Cradle'] very carefully in a fortnight: about 50 pp. a day. It held me all right, though not quite so strongly as 'C'. As with 'C'., 'C. C.' is strongest & best in the last ¼ or 1/3. . . . My boy, you may have made 70 corrections in the new edition, but there are plenty more to make. . . .

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Chester Francis Cobb : Mr Moffat

I have now read 'Mr Moffat'. If the author is very young I regard it as a pretty sound book. Fundamentally true throughout, with a good plot well constructed and improving as it goes on. . . . As for the alleged originality of technique, I cannot honestly agree that there is any. James Joyce has already done the ‘running accompaniment of thought’ business far more elaborately, realistically, and brilliantly than Mr. Cobb. And Joyce is already responsible for a school.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

William Gerhardi : The Polyglots

Thanks for your letter & 'The Polyglots'. I regret not to be able to agree with you as to the latter. I have read it, & though it is loose & contains some merely silly pages, I much enjoyed it. I think it is an original and diverting work, with power in many places, and un peu touchant.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Maurice Barres : Jardin de Bérénice

Barrès is all right sometimes. The 'Jardin de Bérénice' is his best work. You ought to read Charles Louis Philippe’s 'Bubu de Montparnasse'. And Roger Martin du Gard’s 'Jean Barois'. These books will hold you. I should suggest also Colette’s 'Chéri', only I gravely doubt if you would be able to follow its very difficult colloquialisms. . . . Roulette is a bit of a lark, but very dangerous. See the diary of Madame Dostoevsky on the subject of Feodor’s gambling mania. It is appalling.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Charles Louis Philippe : Bubu de Montparnasse

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Roger Martin du Gard : Jean Barois

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Colette : Chéri

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Anna Dostoevsky : Dostoevsky portrayed by his wife(?)

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

F.A. Hornibrook : The Culture of the Abdomen

I have finished my novel . . . This is largely due to the exercises in 'The Culture of the Abdomen'. They are marvellous. Thank Gertrude for me. . . I am also dieting (in accordance with a book entitled 'Eat & Grow Thin') to reduce my weight & have clearly diminished myself by ½ a stone.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

: Eat and Grow Thin: The Mahdah Menus

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

H.G. Wells : The World of William Clissold

I’ve read 200 pp of 'Clissold'. Formless & wordy, I agree (introductory note foolish); but so far I think the book is very good. It is full of brains, & very provocative & stimulating, & I enjoyed it. If you want to realise how positively good 'Clissold' is, read a bit of 'The Silver Spoon'. But I know you won’t. Coward!

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

John Galsworthy : The Silver Spoon

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Ivan Alexeyevich Bunin : The Gentleman from San Francisco

I have never thought very well of Bunin. I say this with the greatest respect for your opinion, and I admit that you are much more likely to be right than I am. 'A Gentleman from San Francisco' I thought very crude indeed, and I could not get on with 'The Village'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Ivan Alexeyevich Bunin : The Village

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Adelaide Philpotts : Akhnaton

Be not vexed that I have only just read 'Akhnaton'. Of late months I have had so much in the way of absolutely imperative perusal that I’ve got frightfully behind. I am still six behind with friends' books.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

George Sturt : A Small Boy in the Sixties

I have just written an introduction to a posthumous work of George Sturt’s (who generally wrote under the name of George Bourne—very good. I mean really). In order to write it I read through all the letters I received from him in the course of about 28 years.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Louis Golding : Day of Atonement

I received your book some time ago, from the publishers. My life is made terrible by my 'Evening Standard' article. When I took the job on it was clearly understood that I should be absolutely free to review or not to review or not to review, just as I chose. I cannot read all the books which I ought to read, nor even 10% of them. Often I am so puzzled how to be fair that I ignore a whole lot of books and write about some general subject. It is a way out.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

J.B. Priestley : Benighted

I have read your novel, and as you were kind enough to send it to me, I hope you will not mind me giving my opinion of it. I certainly think it is a much better book than 'Adam in Moonshine', which appeared to me to be not the work of a novelist. 'Benighted' seems to me to be the work of a novelist.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

J.B. Priestley : Adam in Moonshine

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Radclyffe Hall : The Well of Loneliness

'I told Forster that I was prepared to stand absolutely for both the merits and the decency of the book.' [The Well of Loneliness]

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

H. G. Wells : Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island

'Thoroughgood’s notice of Wells’s book was deplorable. ['Mr Blettsworthy on Rampole Island']. For one thing the book is magnificently written. To me it is the best novel Wells has written for years. Being a member of what are called ‘The Big Four’ I make a rule of never dealing with the work of the other three myself. It would not be becoming of me to do so. Moreover I could not possibly say what I think of Galsworthy.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Chartres Biron : Pious Opinions

I am told that in a book of Sir Chartres Biron there is a passage against book censorship. Can you give me the reference to this passage? One of them is entitled 'Pious Opinions'. I have it.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Radclyffe Hall : The Well of Loneliness

On the conclusion of the 'Well of Loneliness' case, I propose to devote an article to it in the Evening Standard. I need not tell you that I am anti-police.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Chartres Biron : To the Pure

I have read 'To the Pure', in the American edition, and I brought it into an article for the Standard which I wrote and delivered before the summons was taken out. As the summons preceded the day for publication of the article. The article of course had to be held over. I shall embody the substance of it in another article which will appear as soon as Biron has delivered himself.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

André Gide : The Vatican Swindle

I have read a lot of 'The Vatican Swindle' and also 'The School of Women'. I see in the course of a year a large number of American translations, and I have not yet seen one which was not extremely inferior to Madame Bussy’s translation of you.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

André Gide : The School of Women

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

André Gide : L'Ecole des Femmes

I wish I could write short novels like your completely admirable 'L’Ecole des Femmes'. But I can’t.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Richard Hughes : A High Wind in Jamaica

Thank you for your appreciative letter. I am glad to have it. I did not say that 'A High Wind' would be the best book of the autumn. As for Powys, he is a friend of mine, but I could not get on with his book, and so I have said nothing about it. I think that you have touched its weak spot in saying that it is too abnormal.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

John Cowper Powys : Wolf Solent

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Hector Berlioz : Soirées de l'Orchestre

Reading Berlioz’s 'Soirées de L’Orchestre' the other day I found that an opera on the Aztec subject was actually written and composed in Berlioz’s time.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

William Rothenstein : Men and Memoirs

I am returning your Memoirs. Technically they have practically no faults, except those of the typist. A few slips here and there. And also one or two places where I think a little cutting might be done. . . . Finally you need have no qualms about the book, either technically of as to its interestingness. As a fact you write a damned sight too skilfully for a painter.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: typescript

James Hanley : ?A Passion before Death

I have now read your story. I return it herewith. I think that it is very well done.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Unknown

Herman Melville : Moby Dick

'Moby Dick'. The present vogue of Hermann Melville is mainly due to two English novelists, Frank Swinnerton and myself. We both of us have great opportunities for publicity and 8 or 10 years ago, in the Reform Club, we decided to convince the world that 'Moby Dick' was the greatest of all sea-novels. And we did! There is a lot more of Melville that you ought to read, if you have not already read it. Some of the ‘Piazza Tales’ are wonderful. And the novel 'Pierre', though while mad and very strange and overstrained, is really original and remarkable. Some of the still stranger books I have not yet read or tried to read. The trouble is that the esoteric books can only be obtained in the complete edition of the works. Happily I possess it. I believe that the original editions of 'Typee' and 'Omoo' are much better than the current editions, which have been expurgated. Please note that I think 'Evan Harrington' is better than 'Beauchamp’s Career' and 'The Woodlanders' better than the 'Mayor of Casterbridge'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Herman Melville : The Piazza Tales

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Herman Melville : Pierre: or the Ambiguities

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Herman Melville : Typee

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Herman Melville : Omoo

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

George Meredith : Evan Harrington

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

George Meredith : Beauchamp's Career

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Thomas Hardy : The Mayor of Casterbridge

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Siegfried Sassoon : Memoirs of an Infantry Officer

A very fine book indeed, recently published, is Siegfried Sassoon’s 'Memoirs of an Infantry Officer'. I thought that I could never tolerate another war book, but this one, after the first 30 or 40 pages is really extremely distinguished. It has style, wit, beauty and truthfulness.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

: Sunday Express

In the main, the reviews of I.P. [Imperial Palace] have been excellent. But it is curious that 2 out of 3 of Max’s papers were excessively rude about it, the third (Sunday Express) was fulsome. I wrote privately to the Editor of the Standard pointing out grave misstatements in fact in Bruce Lockhart’s article on it. He could offer no defence whatever. Similarly I protested to the editor of the Times Lit. Supplement about its assertion that I had been imitating Priestley’s fashion of length, for the sake of gain. . . . Maugham’s Cakes & Ale is 1st rate. But easily the finest of all recent novels is D.H. Lawrence’s The Virgin and the Gipsy. Nothing else exists by the side of it. Believe me. It is marvellous, truly.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Newspaper

Bruce Lockhart : Evening Standard

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Newspaper

: Times Literary Supplement

In the main, the reviews of I.P. [Imperial Palace] have been excellent. But it is curious that 2 out of 3 of Max’s papers were excessively rude about it, the third (Sunday Express) was fulsome. I wrote privately to the Editor off the Standard pointing out grave misstatements in fact in Bruce Lockhart’s article on it. He could offer no defence whatever. Similarly I protested to the editor of the Times Lit. Supplement about its assertion that I had been imitating Priestley’s fashion of length, for the sake of gain. . . . Maugham’s Cakes & Ale is 1st rate. But easily the finest of all recent novels is D.H. Lawrence’s The Virgin and the Gipsy. Nothing else exists by the side of it. Believe me. It is marvellous, truly.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

W. Somerset Maugham : Cakes and Ale

In the main, the reviews of I.P. [Imperial Palace] have been excellent. But it is curious that 2 out of 3 of Max’s papers were excessively rude about it, the third (Sunday Express) was fulsome. I wrote privately to the Editor off the Standard pointing out grave misstatements in fact in Bruce Lockhart’s article on it. He could offer no defence whatever. Similarly I protested to the editor of the Times Lit. Supplement about its assertion that I had been imitating Priestley’s fashion of length, for the sake of gain. . . . Maugham’s 'Cakes & Ale' is 1st rate. But easily the finest of all recent novels is D.H. Lawrence’s 'The Virgin and the Gipsy'. Nothing else exists by the side of it. Believe me. It is marvellous, truly.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

D.H. Lawrence : The Virgin and the Gypsy

In the main, the reviews of I.P. [Imperial Palace] have been excellent. But it is curious that 2 out of 3 of Max’s papers were excessively rude about it, the third (Sunday Express) was fulsome. I wrote privately to the Editor off the Standard pointing out grave misstatements in fact in Bruce Lockhart’s article on it. He could offer no defence whatever. Similarly I protested to the editor of the Times Lit. Supplement about its assertion that I had been imitating Priestley’s fashion of length, for the sake of gain. . . . Maugham’s 'Cakes & Ale' is 1st rate. But easily the finest of all recent novels is D.H. Lawrence’s 'The Virgin and the Gipsy'. Nothing else exists by the side of it. Believe me. It is marvellous, truly.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

D.H. Lawrence : The Virgin and the Gypsy

When you have read 'The Virgin and the Gipsy' you might get the volume of stories called 'The Woman who Rode Away' and read the title-story. After that 'The Rainbow'—if you can get it. It was suppressed here by the police and I have no copy. Some unprincipled friend has stolen it from me. I am delighted that you enjoyed 'Evan Harrington'. . . . I agree with you that 'Memoirs of an Infantry Officer' is an even better book than 'Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man'.

the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

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Arnold Bennett

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Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Sheet

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

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Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

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Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Sheet

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

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Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Unknown

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett

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Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

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Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical

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Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

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Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Book

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett

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