Showing results by author "Arnold Bennett" in All Categories

The Old Wives' Tale is broken up into four parts, and the lives of two sisters are laid bare: one timid and unassuming, the other romantic and adventurous. From working as children in their family's drapery shop to their later years, Constance and Sophia's journey through life could not be more different. While one travels the world and defies male expectations, the other becomes a dutiful wife and mother.

In Ghost - A Modern Fantasy, we follow Carl Foster, a newly qualified doctor, as he arrives in London with dreams of success. His life takes a dramatic turn when he encounters the renowned tenor, Signor Alresca, who suffers a horrific backstage injury. As Carl tends to Alresca, he becomes captivated by the lead soprano, Rosetta Rosa, igniting a passionate love affair. Under Alrescas mentorship, Carl travels to Bruges, where he uncovers the tenors unsettling obsessions and is shadowed by a mysterious stranger. The atmosphere darkens further when Alrescas sudden death leaves Carl entangled in a ...

This classic personal time-management book, originally published in 1908, has inspired generations of men and women to live deliberate lives. Not just another collection of timesaving tips, this book is more of a challenge to leave behind mundane everyday concerns, focus on pursuing one's true desires, and live the fullest possible life. Reflection, concentration, and study techniques make it easier to accomplish more truly rewarding undertakings than anyone ever dreamed possible.

Set in stifled, industrial Staffordshire in the late 19th century, against a strong evangelical background, Anna of the Five Towns tells of the courting of hard businessman Ephraim Tellright's daughter by prosperous and accomplished Henry Mynors. As her father's fortune grows, so does Anna understanding. She realises her legacy and responsibility for the possible ruination of her father's tenants, Titus Price and his son, Willie, who also loves her.

Spanning nearly half a century, The Old Wives Tale is epic in scale and scope, tracing as it does the effects of time on two sisters and their surroundings. The novel is a domestic story told with tenderness, and is concerned not with heroic statesmen or soldiers, but with small details of daily life in a way which demonstrates Bennett’s great debt to French realist writers. The action is concentrated mainly within the provincial town of Bursley, a startling contrast to Paris where Sophia and Gerald elope.

Helen Rathbone meets her elderly uncle, James Ollerenshaw, in Bursley Park, after an estrangement of several years. Both are very strong-willed, independent characters. Helen has an extravagant lifestyle and likes to spend money while the old man has lived a thrifty life and intends to continue in the same way. However, they develop a friendship which progresses rapidly, and Helen moves in to James' house to look after him.

It is 1919 shortly after the termination of the 1st European holocaust. Henry Earlforward, a middle aged North London Bookseller, courts and marries Violet Arb, a widow who has inherited the confectioners shop opposite his own premises in Riceyman Square. Henry and Violet engage the services of Elsie as ‘charwoman’.

In this radical reinterpretation of six brilliant Arnold Bennett novels, it’s the 19th-century Midlands and over 10-and-a-half sweeping hours individuals rise and fall, they age, flourish, and try to keep up as the world around them changes into something unrecognisable, transformed by new technology. Fortunes are made and lost, hearts broken, empires built and deals made. These tales of aspiration and passion, damage and danger are told with Bennett's forensic, (journalist’s) eye for human psychology and a surprising degree of witty comedy.

This collection of short stories contains several gothic tales to bear macabre and chilling witness to writers as diverse as Rudyard Kipling, Guy De Maupassant, Edgar Allan Poe, Arnold Bennett, Daniel Defoe, Edith Nesbit and M.R. James. These tales are designed to unsettle you, just a little, while you sit back, and take in their words as they lead you on a walk to places you’d perhaps rather not visit on your own. Our stories include "My Own True Ghost Story" by Rudyard Kipling, "The Horla" by Guy De Maupassant, and more.

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. They can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. The zenith of Empire is bookended by two catastrophic wars that slaughter vast swathes of humanity. And yet authors manage to record and create fragile libraries of humanity, its talents, its dreams and increasingly its nightmares.

Sadness can be about so many things from places to people, from thoughts to actions. Our classic authors including Arnold Bennett, James Joyce, Willa Cather, Joseph Conrad, Ivan Turgenev and many others use their pens and stories to demonstrate the many ways this feeling can take a hold of lives and its consequences.

With the advent of the modern corporate workplace in the twenty-first century, more and more people are toiling away behind desks, wearily clocking the standard forty-hour week. By 1910, author Arnold Bennett had observed a worrying trend of exhausted wage earners whose waking hours revolved around their jobs and who had little time to spend on the business of actually living. Self-improvement was Bennett's prescription for a speedy escape from the woes of the rat race.

Learn to use your most precious commodity—time—to truly live. Arnold Bennett’s classic book, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day, has been changing the way people use and consider their time since it was first published in 1910. In the intervening century surprisingly little has changed—we...

A BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Arnold Bennett's tale of love, tyranny and rebellion, 'Anna of the Five Towns'. Brought up in the repressive tradition of Methodism by her miserly father, Anna Tellwright dreams of independence and freedom. On coming of age she learns that she is to inherit a...

Devi vivere su queste ventiquattro ore di tempo quotidiano. Con esso devi far girare la salute, il piacere, il denaro, la soddisfazione, il rispetto e l'evoluzione della tua anima immortale. Il suo giusto uso, il suo uso più efficace, è una questione della massima urgenza e della più emozionante attualità. Tutto dipende da questo. La nostra felicità - l'inafferrabile premio a cui siamo tutti aggrappati, dipende da questo. Usando il potere dell'organizzazione consapevole, puoi ritagliarti numerosi minuti di tempo per te e la tua crescita personale in diversi momenti della giornata.

Dive into Elsie And The Child, a captivating collection of thirteen short stories from 1924 by a master storyteller of the early twentieth century. Renowned for his engaging fiction and nonfiction, the author won the hearts of many. Following his contributions to the WWI war effort, he graciously declined the Order of the British Empire (OBE). Enjoy a rich tapestry of narratives that reflect the eras spirit, beautifully narrated by David Wales.

Dive into a charming collection of short stories that gently satirize and humorously reflect on the everyday life of small-town England at the close of the nineteenth century. Set in the six towns of Staffordshire, famously known as the Potteries, Arnold Bennett artfully fictionalizes these locales, opting for the more melodious Five Towns by omitting Fenton. The narrative cleverly intertwines the real towns of Hanley, Longton, Burslem, and Tunstall, with Stoke transformed into the fictional Knype. Born in Hanley in 1867, Arnold Bennetts journey from a solicitors clerk to a celebrated writer ...

Arnold Bennett was an English novelist and author. Among his most popular novels are The Grand Babylon Hotel and Anna of the Five Towns. However, none of his novels approached the popularity of his little book, "How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day." It caused a sensation when first printed and continues to be printed and widely read today. In it, he offers practical advice on how one might live (as opposed to just existing ) within the confines of 24 hours a day.

Carlotta Peel is not your typical young woman; she is sharp-witted, fiercely independent, and a gifted author with a deep yearning for love and the desire to serve her partner. This first-person narrative takes you on an unexpected and intriguing journey through her life, revealing the complexities of her heart and mind. - Summary by Simon Evers

‘The Pretty Lady’ stands as one of Bennetts most insightful yet overlooked works. It tells the compelling story of Christine, a French prostitute who has fled the chaos of wartime Ostend to forge a new life in London. Rather than seeking sympathy, Christine embodies self-sufficiency, practicality, and resilience. She is not a predatory figure lurking for vulnerable soldiers but a savvy entrepreneur making the most of her circumstances. Her primary connection is with G.J. Hoape, a wealthy man beyond the militarys reach. Through this narrative, Bennett paints a haunting portrait of a wartime...