Clayhanger

The life and times of Edwin Clayhanger will surprise, move and fascinate, as he grows from boy to man in the Five Towns at the beginning of the twentieth centuryNo longer a boy, not quite a man, Edwin Clayhanger stands on a canal bridge on his last day of school, and surveys the valley of Bursley and the Five Towns. Serious, good-natured and full of incoherent ambition, Edwin's hopes and dreams for the future are just taking shape, even as they are put to the test by challenges from Edwin's domineering father, the stifling constraints of society, and an unusual young woman.

“"For Bennett . . . compassion is not soggy. It involves understanding. The core of his writing is psychological truth, clinically observed, crisply reported." -- Sunday Times”

Crammed with details of Victorian life, the first book in Bennett's trilogy about a Potteries family examines how one man, Edwin Clayhanger, is shaped by class, geography and ties of blood. Guardian
Arnold Bennett writes marvelously on the stuff of life New York Times
For Bennett...compassion is not soggy. It involves understanding. The core of his writing is psychological truth, clinically observed, crisply reported Sunday Times

Arnold Bennett was born in Staffordshire on 27 May 1867, the son of a solicitor. Rather than following his father into the law, Bennett moved to London at the age of twenty-one and began a career in writing . His first novel, The Man from the North, was published in 1898 during a spell as editor of a periodical - throughout his life journalism supplemented his writing career. In 1902 Bennett moved to Paris, married, and published some of his best known novels, most of which were set in The Potteries district where he grew up- Anna of the Five Towns (1902), The Old Wives Tale (1908), and the Clayhanger series (1910-1918). These works, as well as several successful plays, established him both in Europe and America as one of the most popular and acclaimed writers of his era. Bennett returned to England in 1912, and during the First World War worked for Lord Beaverbrook in the Ministry of Information. In 1921, separated from his first wife, he fell in love with an actress, Dorothy Cheston, with whom he had a child. He received the James Tait Black Award for his novel Riceyman Steps in 1923. Arnold Bennett died of typhoid in London on 27 March 1931.

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