Talk:Arnold Bennett

First wife?

It doesn't give her name or anything about the marriage. Valetude (talk) 10:15, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

In the 1970s there was a book of their correspondence, Arnold Bennett In Love. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Arnold-Bennett-love-Marguerite-correspondence/dp/0851270085 However, a biographical dictionary website says: "Bennett lived in France from 1902 to 1913. Shortly after his fortieth birthday he married Marguerite Soulié. The couple seemed happy but within a few years proved incompatible." https://biography.yourdictionary.com/arnold-bennett Marguerite, according to Britannica and other sources, was a French actress who had grown up in circumstances more comfortable than those of Bennett's youth. They married in 1907. If you research Bennett a bit you can find, for instance, Google Books results from out-of-print books, or extracts from Bennett's journals online (I don't have time at the moment to hunt all this up again), which show that even by about 1911 they were apart for much of the time. Bennett was in fact in London a good deal, contrary to the impression given by the article at present. He was often at the Reform Club, where he was on good cigar-smoking and chatting terms with Henry James in the Smoking Room after lunch. He eventually took a sort of bachelor flat, I think on Piccadilly, so he could spend more time in London. He wanted to keep Marguerite out of his London life. This annoyed her because she would have liked to move in that sort of society, but she was quite haughty and demanding and he felt she would just upset his friends and make him uninvitable. Khamba Tendal (talk) 17:33, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Comments

Nice article - as expected. Well put together and in excellent shape. A couple of very minor tweaks made, and a few comments below:

Lead

• "despite their enormous popularity": I tripped slightly on this, wondering if the modernist school were the popular ones

• Whoops! Attended to. Glad you spotted this. Tim riley talk

• "His finest novels": looks a bit POV-ish

• I think the main text justifies this, with suitable citations. Tim riley talk 19:37, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Freelance; Paris

• "He did not begin work on that novel until 1907, and those published during his early years in Paris". This doesn't segue too smoothly.

• True. Redrawn. Tim riley talk 19:37, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Marriage; Fontainebleau

• "Bennett was well rid of her": does she base this on anything?

• She does – Green was an all-round bad lot – but it seems to me that her irresponsible behaviour over the wedding and her quick switch to another fiancé are reason enough in themselves. Tim riley talk 19:37, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

• Commas for £2000, £1200 and £3000?

• Indeed. Done. Tim riley talk 19:37, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Notes

• Is note 3 of any use, given the spread of £16,780 to £65,770? Wouldn't a direct conversion (such as this brilliant piece) work a bit better?

• I quite agree. Would it be too cheeky of me to ask if you would kindly do the honours? Tim riley talk 19:37, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

I hope these help. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 15:50, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Excellent! Thank you for these pointers. I'll enjoy working through them. Tim riley talk 17:44, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

SchroCat, thank you for those points: replies above, plus gratuitous importuning. Tim riley talk 19:37, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Done. Pip pip - SchroCat (talk) 20:01, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Thank you very much. Tim riley talk 20:10, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Age of qualifying as a solicitor

hi this article says he was born in 1867 and qulatified as a solicitor in 1876 - he would have been 9 years old? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.23.32.204 (talk) 11:27, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

If you read the article again you will see that the son was born in 1867 and the father qualified as a solicitor in 1876. Tim riley talk 17:58, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

The Bookman (London)

• online Template:Open access
• 0mtwb9gd5wx (talk) 22:24, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

No references to "Our Women: Chapters on the Sex-Discord"

In 1920 Arnold Bennett published a book (collection of essays) titled Our Women: Chapters on the Sex-Discord. This book is available from Google Books. The book included topics such as "Are Men Superior to Women?" (Chapter 4), with his answer being an unequivocal "yes". To be clear, I have not read more than excerpts of this book, but encountered discussion of it in a Virginia Woolf biography published in 2005 by Julia Briggs titled Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life. I know little about Virginia Woolf, which has led to my reading of this bio. I know even less of Arnold Bennett, having not heard of him before the VW bio. I am curious why this book is not referenced in the Wiki article, as it is apparently a (large?) contributing factor in why VW had issues with Bennett. The Wiki article seems to imply her issues with him were petty and nasty (e.g., "For this reason, and for his adherence to realism, writers and supporters of the modernist school, notably Virginia Woolf, belittled him, and his fiction became neglected after his death"). Although the realism/modernism situation may indeed be a reason, it seems to paint an incomplete picture to ignore the content of Our Women and VW's reaction to his stances.

Unless there is some reason for this (to me) notable omission, I am reluctantly willing to try to modify the article. I am reluctant because I know little to nothing about either author in question. Richardj311 (talk) 07:42, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

The book Our Women was a recycled set of essays, and is mentioned only in passing in Margaret Drabble's biography of Bennett. He and Woolf were on friendly terms socially, meeting from time to time at dinner parties and other gatherings, but professionally she conceived an author's role as based on his or her characters. So, as she admitted in Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown (1924), did Bennett, but Woolf had little time for his detailed descriptions of his characters' everyday lives. "To Virginia Woolf such details were dull externals; she did not want to know about houses, she wanted to know about souls". Bennett had equally little time for Woolf's gracious society women who, like Woolf herself, had none of the domestic accomplishments of Bennett's female characters such as Alice Farll or Constance Povey. Wolff divided her contemporary fellow authors into two groups: the "Edwardians" (Bennett, Galsworthy and Wells) and the more modernistic "Georgians" (Forster, Lawrence, Joyce and Eliot), disapproving of the first and approving of the second. And there is also the matter of their target readerships: Wolff was writing for the élite few and Bennett for a much wider, general audience, and each writer disapproved of the other's approach. As Briggs comments, Bennett "summed up for Woolf the failings of exact observation and realistic representation". In Our Women, Bennett does not in fact answer the question in the title of Chapter 4 with "an emphatic yes": he concludes, "women will never get beyond the function of being the complement of men. And lest I may be misunderstood, let me add that men will never get beyond the function of being the complement of women". There is no reason to single out Our Women for special mention in the context of the two novelists' relationship. Tim riley talk 10:42, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Two very minor thoughts

Just wondering, I'm a little new to this but I wonder what you think of the following - I may just be being pedantic!

When the article describes the other famous figures with dishes named for them, Dame Nellie Melba links to the article for Peach Melba. As she has a number of dishes named for her, perhaps the link should redirect to the legacy section of her biography.

Good idea, I think. I suggest you alter it. Tim riley talk 21:56, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

Secondly, I'm not sure the word "unwisely" in the second paragraph of the introduction is totally necessary? I understand drinking water that isn't potable is not wise, that's not my contention, but the adjective seems a little strong or pointed somehow. Maybe this is completely off base of me but it feels a little like a bit of editorialising almost. Clunk Butter talk|contrib 21:41, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

User:Clunk_Butter, you aren't being in the least pedantic, but I think the prose is all right here. The article has been through a featured article candidacy and nobody boggled at the adverb, perhaps feeling that doing something that kills you is ipso facto unwise. But my hat is off to you for spotting the Melba point. Tim riley talk 21:56, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for your swift and fair responses! This place can be intimidating for newbies sometimes, so I appreciate your reply greatly. I've changed the link per my first thought. For the second thought, far be it from me to go against consensus, I just found the word a little unkind to Bennett! Clunk Butter talk|contrib 22:39, 26 February 2025 (UTC)