Bennett, Arnold (Enoch Arnold Bennett), 1867–1931, English novelist and dramatist. One of the great 20th-century English novelists, Bennett is famous for his realistic novels about the "Five Towns," an imaginary manufacturing district in northern England. Bennett's early career included editing the fashionable magazine Woman and writing literary reviews and articles. About 1900 he began to devote himself industriously to his own work, producing a series of excellent regional novels. Influenced by the naturalism naturalism, in literature, an approach that proceeds from an analysis of reality in terms of natural forces, e.g., heredity, environment, physical drives. The chief literary theorist on naturalism was Émile Zola , who said in his essay
..... Click the link for more information. of Zola, he depicted in great detail the grim, sometimes sordid, lives of shopkeepers and potters. His attitude toward his characters was one of affectionate sympathy, and he always managed to make their mundane lives interesting. Bennett's best work is contained in his novels of the "Five Towns," which include Anna of the Five Towns (1902), The Old Wives' Tale (1908), the trilogy Clayhanger (1910), Hilda Lessways (1911), and These Twain (1916). Bennett also achieved considerable success as a playwright, most notably with Milestones (1912), written with Edward Knoblock, and The Great Adventure (1913).

Bibliography

See his journal (3 vol., 1932–33); biography by M. Drabble (1974).

Bennett, (Enoch) Arnold

(born May 27, 1867, Hanley, Staffordshire, Eng.—died March 27, 1931, London) English novelist, playwright, critic, and essayist. His major works, inspired by Gustave Flaubert and Honoré de Balzac, form an important link between the English novel and the mainstream of European realism. He is best known for his highly detailed novels of the “Five Towns”—the Potteries in his native Staffordshire—which are the setting of Anna of the Five Towns (1902), The Old Wives' Tale (1908), and the three novels that make up The Clayhanger Family (1925). He was also a well-known critic.