Tales of the Five Towns

Description

Simple things and everyday characters depicted in an extraordinary way – these are the features that made Arnold Bennett’s works so popular when they were first published in the 19th century, and these are the features that make them popular in our times as well. Tales of Five Towns is no exception – the plots are centered on the inhabitants of the five towns known as the Potteries in Staffordshire, area that Bennett knew so well because he was born in one of these towns.

The main characters in the stories are everyday people, but there is something strange or weird about each of them that makes them suitable plot generators and protagonists. The stories are told in a charming, witty and poignant style – it is actually more the storytelling and not so much the characters that takes in the readers, prompting them to read on and on. Bennett has an excellent eye for the absurdity of human behavior and never fails to make his point, commenting on his characters and the events he gets them involved into in a witty, satiric and always deeply human way.

Arnold Bennett was born in one of the Potteries towns in 1867. After he completed his education, he started working with his father, a local solicitor, but their work relationship was not a successful one, prompting Bennett to leave and find work elsewhere. Bennett took up journalism and editorship after he had won a literary competition in 1889.

In 1894, he became assistant editor, and then editor to a magazine and held the position until 1900, when he started writing full-time. In 1903, Bennett moved to Paris and started writing about ordinary people and their lives, believing that such everyday subjects can become the focus of the most interesting books. In 1905, he published his Tales of the Five Towns,which made ordinary people great and complex heroes of great and complex stories, indeed.
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