Potteries Talent Arnold Bennett

Potteries Talent Arnold Bennett #

Enoch Arnold Bennett was one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century. If any one man epitomised the Potteries it was the man born in Hanley in 1867 because his birthplace, one of the `Six Towns`, was a real life model for one the `Five Towns` central to his writing, Hanbridge. Educated in Newcastle under Lyme he went to work for his solicitor father on leaving school but he was desperately unhappy, both at work and with his parental miserliness, emotions which became central themes in his writing. Part-time journalism gave Arnold a brief escape from his dull existence but he was unable to pursue a career in writing until he swapped the Potteries for London, aged just 21. The irony of going from the `frying pan into the fire` would have not escaped the young man as his first job in the capital was in a solicitor`s office. Arnold`s first break was in winning a literary competition in Tit Bits, which propelled him into journalism, full-time, and he secured a post as assistant editor of Woman magazine. He noted that the quality of one contributor was poor, so he wrote a better piece and promptly sold the series for £75. He soon wrote his first novel A Man from the North and such was the acclaim with which it was received that he became magazine editor. By 1900 Arnold Bennett abandoned editing in favour of writing, and two years later, in the same year his father died, he published his most famous work and the one which gave the world such a vivid description of the Potteries that it became almost a universal stereotype of his home town, for folk who had never been there. Anne of the Five Towns was driven by Bennett`s intense belief in the value of ordinary people as literary subject matter and in that vein he became THE chronicler of home town life in the Potteries. Despite his fame Bennett was a prophet unknown on home territory but in the United States he was lauded, as no English writer since Dickens. And when he lived in Paris, between 1903 and 1911, he produced another masterpiece, the Old Wives Tale. Bennett`s work is revered because it has passed the true test of literary ability, time. His novels, as well as his works of non-fiction, have stood the test of time. One work in particular, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day, is still regarded, even now, as one of THE best self-help tomes. Bennett`s writing was not restricted to the bookshelves as he also wrote for stage and screen. His 1912 novel, Buried Alive, was made into the film The Great Adventure while Alec Guinness starred in the title role of the movie The Card. The television mini-series, Clayhanger, was based on Bennett`s Anna of the Five Towns. Arnold Bennett never set foot on home town soil again after he left in 1888 despite all the fame and fortune writing of the Potteries brought him. He died in his Baker Street, London, home, of typhoid, in 1931 but even though his `exile` was self-inflicted, he would have appreciated the paradox of his homecoming. The ashes of Arnold Enoch Bennett were interred in Burslem Cemetery at the very heart of the area which provided such a rich vein of inspiration for his writing which took the Potteries to the world, and the world to the Potteries. end