Arnold Bennett Part II

Bennett was born in the Potteries town of Hanley, now part of Stoke on Trent in 1867. His father had tried varous jobs and trained as a solicitor. He married and was doing well financially. Arnold had a good education. Like Edwin Clayhanger, he wanted to do something different to what his father wanted for him. Bennett senior wanted him to become a lawyer, like him. Arnold loved literature and especially French literature and he wanted to write. He did several jobs, when he left school, but at the age of 21, he trained as a shorthand writer and left the Potteries, for London. He got work with his shorthand and began to write in his spare time. He made friends with a young man who also loved French literature and began to plan for a career as a novelist. In his mid 20's he got a job as a magazine editor and wrote a couple of novels. In 1903, after his father's death, he decided to move to France. He loved French culture and felt it would help with his writing. He was a very shy man especially with women.. but in France he met a woman, Marguerite Soulier. He fell in love with her and they married when he was 40. He spent several years in France, before World War One. He and Marguerite had no children. He was a prolific and very successful writer. Clayhanger did especially well... and he was comfortably off. However critics have felt that many of his novels were pot boilers, and not very good, being only written to make money..... He and his wife came back to England a year or so before the War. He bought a country house and he began to write plays, which were reasonably popular. He was asked to do propaganda work during the war, and that was his contribution to the war effort. However in 1921, his marriage was going downhill and he got a legal separation from his wife. He went on writing, and then met an English actress, Dorothy Cheston. Marguerite would not agree to a divorce, so Bennett and Dorothy lived together, and she changed her name to his. She also had a daughter by Bennett, Virginia Mary and she continued her acting career. In 1931, Bennet went for a holiday to France and drank some tap water there. It was not considered safe... and he soon became very ill. He died of typhoid within a few weeks. His career had its ups and downs. Critics deprecated his production of so many poor novels which were written mainly to make money. He was a northerner and some of his best novels were set in the Potteries and were about ordinary middle class people, living normal dull lives. He never went back to the Potteries after leaving at the age of 21, and many of his later books were set in London and a few were set abroad.

Clayhanger Part II

Hilda is the daughter of a widow who has a little house property, but is far from rich. She is intelligent but there is no role for an unmarried middle class girl other than helping her mother. Mrs Lessways dies and Hilda trains as a shorthand clerk and finds work. She meets George Cannon, a solicitor who helps with settling her mother's estate. He is an attractive man but a lot older than her. She falls in love and they get married. She becomes pregnant. Edwin loses touch with her, but he still cares for her - . Then Hilda discovers that George is not a qualified solicitor. He has legal experience but he has never passed the exams. And worse still, she finds that he married an older woman when he was very young and they are still married so he is not legally married to Hilda. She splits up with him and tries to make a living for several years, running a lodging house. She is not very good at it but she manages to keep her head afloat and look after her son George. Then she meets up with Edwin again. She tells him what's happened to her in the intervening years. They get married and he feels happy for a time. He is resigned to never getting to be an architecht, and running the printing works - and he is pleased that he has married the woman he has loved for so long. His family are not all that fond of Hilda. They think she's eccentric and arrogant.. She is not even a chapel goer. She gets bored with life as a middle class housewife. Edwin feel ambivalent about his wife. She is interesting and charming but wilful and easily bored. Hilda persuades him to buy a house out in the country, and travel to work by train. He is not sure he wants to do this but it makes Hilda happy to have a country place and she tries to set up a circle of arty people. She finds that George Cannon had ended up in prison for fraud. Edwin kindly lends him some money to get started again when he gets out and George pays him back. He feels that in spite of her faults, Hilda has made a romance of his life....

Arnold Bennet

I used to be a fan of Arnold Bennett - who was a very popular novelist in the earlier part of the 20th century. One of his major works was set in the Potteries towns, in the Midlands. Edwin Clayhanger is the son of a businessman, Darius, who has a large printing firm. Darius came up from poverty and he expects his son to go into the business. He is the only son. There are 2 daughters. Edwin wants to be an architecht, but he does not have the strength of character to fight against his father. He ends up going into the business and looking after his father as the old man declines. He is friendly with the Orgreaves, a neighbouring family who are more liberal minded but he still can't break free of his own family. Through them, he meets Hilda Lessways an unusual girl who wants independence. She trains as a shorthand writer. Edwin falls in love with her but he finds her hard to understand. More follows.

Uncle Tom's Cabin IV

Cassy and Emmeline fake an escape to draw the search party away and they hide in the attic. Legree is drinking more and when they make weird noises, he begins to think that his house is haunted. He has Tom beaten to try and get him to tell where the women have gone. Tom refuses to say, and says that he can die.... Legree has him beaten so brutally that he is close to death. Then young George Shelby turns up to find his friend. He can see that Tom is dying, and he promises to set his slaves free and to do all he can to end slavery in America. Tom dies, forgiving his enemies and sending messages to his wife and children. George asks if he can bury him somewhere nearby, and Legree agrees. George buries Tom and some of the Legree slaves ask him if he will buy them. He tells them that he can't buy all the slaves who need rescuing. But he will do what he can. He returns to his home and tells Chloe and his mother what has happened. He helps Cassy and Emmeline to escape. He then frees all his own slaves, and hires them to work on the farm. Cassy and Emmeline make new lives for themselves and George Harris and Eliza and Harry go to Europe for George, who is a clever man, to study. He tells his former slaves that he is going to work to see the end of slavery and that Tom has no monument, but that he does not need one.

Uncle Tom's Cabin III

Eva begs her father to give Tom his freedom, and he agrees to do it. He knows his child is dying. After her death, he tells Tom that he will set him free, but he is a dilatory man. He writes to the Shelbys, but then before he can go ahead with the legal business, he gets involved in a brawl in a cafe. He tries to stop two men fighting and gets stabbed. He dies, and Marie decides to sell up the house and her slaves and go back to her father's house. Ophelia agrees to talk to her, about setting Tom free, as St Clare had intended, but she tells Tom she does not think she will be able to influence the selfish woman. Marie is harsh with her slaves and goes ahead with selling them, refusing to consider making Tom free or selling him back to his old home. This time he is sold down South to a Yankee man called Simon Legree. He owns a farm and he thinks that as Tom seems honest and good at managing a farm, he will make use of his skills. But Tom refuses to be harsh with his fellow slaves and Legree, who is both crazy and evil, develops a hatred of him. St Clare's letter goes to the Shelby family, but Mr Shelby has suddenly been taken ill and dies. Mrs Shelby and her son George are busy with Mr Shelby's death and the legal business of taking over the farm and the letter gets neglected. When it is read, George says he will go down south and try and find his old friend. But by the time this happens, Tom has been sold and is in the ownership of Legree and can't be found. In the meantime, Eliza and her son have travelled to Canada and been reunited with her husband George Harris. Tom is worked very hard on Legree's farm, as are all the slaves. He tries to help the weaker ones and continues to read his bible and pray. Legree has a couple of slaves who are his overseers and he uses them to join in his drinking bouts and to punish the rest of the slaves. A new girl slave has come to the farm with Tom and Legree wants her for his mistress but she refuses. Cassy, an older woman who was Legree's mistress tells her and Tom that she will help her to get away. Legree becomes increasingly mad..... when the 2 women disappear.

Uncle Tom's Cabin II

Ophelia is a typical New Englander, hard working, efficient, and good hearted. She does not approve of slavery, but when St Clare takes her home, and greets his slaves, he realises that she does not really like black people. She is shocked that he and Eva kiss and shake hands with the rest of the household. Tom settles into his new home, and is there especially to look after Eva. He is not happy though and wishes he could go back to Kentucky, to his wife and children. Back at the Shelby household, Mrs Shelby tries to persuade her husband to try and find Tom and buy him back and he says he can't afford it. Chloe, Tom's wife, is a very good cook, and she suggests that Mrs Shelby should hire her out to a confectioner in another town, and they can use the money she earns to buy Tom. Mrs Shelby knows it will take a long time before Chloe can earn enough money but she agrees. Tom tries to write a letter to Chloe but he can't write properly so Mr St Clare offers to write for him. Eva's health begins to decline. She is consumptive. She is only a little child, but she suffers from seeing the way that black people are treated.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Uncle Tom's Cabin opens in a farm in Kentucky, where Tom is a slave who is married with several children. Mrs Shelby the mistress of the farm, hates slavery... but her husband owns several slaves. He finds himself in financial trouble and decides that he has to sell some of his slaves. Tom is a sensible man and a good farm manager, and there is a young woman who has a small child, Harry... and Shelby sells them to a slave dealer. He wants the child, who is bright and strong, and Tom who is efficient. But Mrs Shelby is horrified and tells Tom that as soon as they can, they will buy him back. Tom is a Christian and is resigned to whatever happens to him. But Eliza, the mother of the little boy, tells him that she cannot let her son be sold down South, and she is going to run away. Her husband, an intelligent man called George, has a cruel master and he has talked of running away to Canada. Tom tells his wife that he supports Eliza escaping, as it is natural for a mother to want to save her children. She flees with Harry, and manages to cross an ice bound river and make her way to a Quaker settlement. The Quakers dont believe in slavery so they are willing to hide her and help her to go North. Tom is taken away on a journey down the river, to New Orleans. On the boat, there is a little girl called Eva, who is travelling with her father and her father's cousin Ophelia, from the North. Eva takes a fancy to Tom, and asks her father to buy him. Mr St Clare does not like slavery, but he is an indolent man and has never made the effort to free his slaves. His wife Marie, is a cold silly selfish woman and she is hard on her slaves. St Clare tries to mitigate her harshness and he agrees to buy Tom. He has become worried about his house and his daughter. Marie does nothing about the house and is lazy. He is concerned that Eva who is in delicate health, needs a mother figure, so he has brought his cousin Ophelia from New England to manage his house.