Arnold Bennett Weekend Seminar at Barlaston

Arnold Bennett : London novels – Buried Alive, The Roll-Call, Riceyman Steps and Elsie and the Child

The Tutor: Martin Laux is a graduate of the Universities of Wales and Portsmouth. He spent 30 years as a public sector manager in Hampshire and is now a manager based in Caithness.  Martin has a long-standing interest in Arnold Bennett and regularly contributes to the Arnold Bennett Society’s Newsletter. Martin has organised these courses at Barlaston for the past six years.

The Course: Arnold Bennett was born in 1867 in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent and died in 1931 in London. Bennett left the Potteries in 1889 and thereafter spent much of his life living in London, the Home Counties and France. Bennett wrote over thirty novels and although most well known for his ‘Five Towns’ works he also produced a number of London based stories like his first novel A Man from the North (1898), his first pot-boiler The Grand Babylon Hotel (1902), Buried Alive (1908), his war novel The Pretty Lady (1918), The Roll-Call (1918), Riceyman Steps (1923) and a spin-off long-short story Elsie and the Child (1924), his first story of a film Piccadilly (1929) and his epic last completed novel Imperial Palace (1930).

Buried Alive was written as a holiday from writing The Old Wives’ Tale (1908) in January and February 1908 and was published that June.  

The Roll-Call is the fourth part of the Clayhanger trilogy (Clayhanger 1910, Hilda Lessways 1911, These Twain 1916).  Bennett considered a fourth novel as early as 1910 however it was not started until late 1916.  Riceyman Steps is Bennett’s middle-period masterpiece and is about a middle-aged bookseller and miser who falls in love with a widow; the novel charts their meeting, wooing, marriage and deaths.  The detailed observation harks back to the best of Bennett’s ‘Five Towns’ writing.  Elsie and the Child is a story about Elsie the servant in Riceyman Steps. 

Saturday

4pm – 6pm

Arrival and registration at college reception

6.00pm

Dinner

7.30pm

Introduction, overview of film and television productions of Bennett’s novels with particular reference to the two film versions of Buried Alive

8.00pm

A showing of His Double Life (1933) starring Roland Young as Priam Farrell [sic] and Lillian Gish as Alice Chalice

9.10pm

Discussion

9.30pm

Close of evening

Sunday

8.30am

Breakfast

9.30am

Buried Alive and The Roll-Call

11.00am

Morning coffee

11.30am

Riceyman Steps

1.00pm

Lunch

2:00pm

Elsie and the Child, followed by discussion

3:00pm

Afternoon Tea and close of course

Acknowledgment

Acknowledgement is made to Janet Blight for kind permission to use her original sketch of Riceyman Steps