The Grim Smile of the Five Towns

Arnold Bennett

May 2015 · The Floating Press

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British author Arnold Bennett returns to his native stomping grounds -- the Potteries district of England's West Midlands region -- with this collection of insightful, darkly witty stories about the denizens of the fictionalized "Five Towns." From love gone wrong to mischief and misadventure, these sharply drawn tales run the gamut.

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Arnold Bennett was born on May 27, 1867 in Hanley, Staffordshire, England. He began his working career as a law clerk and later he left the legal field and became an editor for the magazine Woman. His first novel was "A Man from the North." He wrote several novels set in Hanley, the town where he was born. These are known as the Five Town novels. Other titles include "The Babylon Hotel," "The Truth about an Author," and "How to Live on 24 Hours a Day." Bennett won the 1923 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel "Riceyman Steps." "The Journal of Arnold Bennett" was published posthumously in three volumes. Bennett was also the author of "Hugo" which was made into a major motion picture in 2011 starring Jude law and Ben Kingsley, directed by Martin Scorsese. During WWI, Bennett was Director of Propaganda for France at the Ministry of Information. (At that time "propaganda" did not have the negative connotations it would have later in the twentieth century.) This appointment was based on the recommendation of Lord Beaverbrook, who also recommended him as Deputy Minister of that department at the end of the war. Bennett refused a knighthood in 1918. He died in London of typhoid fever on March 27, 1931.