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With the advent of the modern corporate workplace in the twentyfirst century, more and more people are toiling away behind desks, wearily clocking the standard fortyhour week. By 1910, writer Arnold Bennett had observed a worrying trend of exhausted wageearners whose waking hours revolved around their jobs and who had little time to spend on the business of actually living. Selfimprovement was Bennett's prescription for a speedy escape from the woes of the rat race. In his popular work How to Live on 24 Hours a Day, he advised those starved for time to set manageable goals for themselves and to pursue fulfilling activities-in much the same way that modern selfhelp experts urge today's busy people to seek enlightenment, relaxation, and satisfaction in a chaotic world. Take a break from your busy day and let Arnold Bennett's stillfresh advice help you find the contentment and calm you seek.
Arnold Bennett (Author), Arnold Bennett (Narrator)
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Anna Of The Five Towns: Complete
A BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Arnold Bennett's tale of love, tyranny and rebellion, 'Anna of the Five Towns'. Brought up in the repressive tradition of Methodism by her miserly father, Anna Tellwright dreams of independence and freedom. On coming of age she learns that she is to inherit a fortune and realises that she is loved by the charismatic Henry Mynors. But with the money comes responsibility, and Anna's growing concern for William, the son of one of her tenants, leads her to a defiant act that threatens everything... Arnold Bennett's 'Anna of the Five Towns' was dramatised by Helen Edmundson, and stars Charlotte Riley as Anna, David Schofield as Tellwright, Emilia Harker as Young Agnes and Michael Socha as William. Also featured amongst the cast are James Masters, Lee Williams, Rosina Carbone, Olwen May, Andrew Westfield, Jonathan Keeble and Jacqueline Redgwell. Originally broadcast as the 'Classic Serial' in two parts on 6 and 13 March 2011.
Arnold Bennett (Author), Charlotte Riley, David Schofield, Full Cast (Narrator)
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Are you really 'living', or just existing? Do you want to improve yourself or just continue to muddle through? Do you use the time given you each day, or just throw most of it away? These questions Bennett asks each of us and for those who want to really live and learn, offers very valuable advice.
Arnold Bennett (Author), Phil Chenevert (Narrator)
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Are you really 'living', or just existing? Do you want to improve yourself or just continue to muddle through? Do you use the time given you each day, or just throw most of it away? These questions Bennett asks each of us and for those who want to really live and learn, offers very valuable advice.
Arnold Bennett (Author), Matt Montanez (Narrator)
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It is 1919 shortly after the termination of the 1st European holocaust. Henry Earlforward, a middle aged North London Bookseller, courts and marries Violet Arb, a widow who has inherited the confectioners shop opposite his own premises in Riceyman Square. Henry and Violet engage the services of Elsie as ‘charwoman’. The marriage outwardly appears to be successful, although Henry has also inherited and is not an esteemed native of the district and Violet likewise - having been a nomadic traveller due to the demands of her late husbands employment, and her entrenched belief in class differences. But Henry has a monstrous passion which transcends his love for Violet, his resolute determination for thrift. This flaw will ultimately destroy him and his wife and has resounding implications for those within his immediate circle. Elsie, also a widow, stolidly maintains her love for Joe, a mental casualty of the recent conflict, despite his inability to surmount his personal torment. This novel established Bennett firmly on a pinnacle of literary achievement with a foothold in both the 19th and 20th centuries. It is a brilliant, clinical dissection of a troubled marriage, in troubled times and, at its centre, an irritating scratch that ‘will out’.
Arnold Bennett (Author), Peter Joyce (Narrator)
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When local musical prodigy, Gilbert Swann, is selected to play the violoncello with the visiting London orchestra during the musical festival in the five towns, his mother is convinced that he will be the cornerstone of the entire event. When local dignitary Mrs. Clayton-Vernon invites Gilbert to dinner before the concert with her cousin, the famous conductor from London, she sees this as recognition of his musical genius. A sudden cold snap on the day, however, makes Mrs. Swann fearful that Gilbert's hands will get cold on the journey from Mrs. Clayton-Vernon's house to the concert. She resolves to deploy a remedy from her childhood, and sets off to Mrs. Clayton-Vernon's mansion with two steaming hot baked potatoes hidden in her muff, for Gilbert to warm his hands upon before the concert. It does not occur to Mrs. Swann initially that smuggling hot potatoes into Mrs. Clayton-Vernon's grand house may be considered a social faux-pas. Her efforts to conceal the potatoes and hand them over discretely to her son are deliciously farcical...and the adventure turns out rather differently than intended.
Arnold Bennett (Author), Cathy Dobson (Narrator)
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A young wife in a quiet Midlands town, a new dress, a dance, an unimaginative husband. How could a mandarin's sudden death in far-away China have any connection with this homely situation?
Arnold Bennett (Author), Cathy Dobson (Narrator)
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Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) was an English author, born in one of the "Five Towns" which form the background of so many of his witty stories. In The Burglary, Bennett tells the story of a highly respectable and distinguished citizen who hires a burglar to rob his house.
Arnold Bennett (Author), Cathy Dobson (Narrator)
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Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) was an English author, born in one of the "Five Towns" which form the background of so many of his witty stories. When Professor Malpetant pays an unannounced visit to his sister, Muriel, he finds nobody at home. Both Muriel and her maid, Annie, have gone out, though he finds the door unlocked and takes the opportunity to take a look around the house. In Muriel's bedroom he uses the telephone to call the station and arrange his onward journey to Bristol before setting off for the station. It is only when he is steaming on his way to Bristol that he realises he has left his umbrella in Muriel's bedroom. The unexplained presence of a man's umbrella in Muriel's room plunges the entire household and neighbourhood into crisis. Rumours fly, suspicions and accusations are at first whispered...and later hurled. No umbrella ever caused so much trouble to so many people.
Arnold Bennett (Author), Cathy Dobson (Narrator)
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Bennett described his story as an 'Idyllic Diversion'.Helen Rathbone meets her elderly uncle, James Ollerenshaw, in Bursley Park, after an estrangement of several years. Both are very strong willed, independent characters. Helen has an extravagant lifestyle and likes to spend money while the old man has lived a thrifty life and intends to continue in the same way.However, they develop a friendship which progresses rapidly and Helen moves in to James' house to look after him. A battle of wills begins in earnest.Each uses all the cunning and emotional blackmail they can muster to get their own way and both experience a transformation as romance comes knocking at the door.A wonderfully humorous and observant study of human nature and life in the Potteries at the turn of the century.
Arnold Bennett (Author), Peter Joyce (Narrator)
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Spanning nearly half a century, The Old Wives Tale is epic in scale and scope, tracing as it does the effects of time on two sisters and their surroundings. The novel is a domestic story told with tenderness, and is concerned not with heroic statesmen or soldiers, but with small details of daily life in a way which demonstrates Bennett's great debt to French realist writers. The action is concentrated mainly within the provincial town of Bursley, a startling contrast to Paris where Sophia and Gerald elope. 1. GIRLS TOGETHER. Constance and Sophia are the teenage daughters of invalid John Baines, Bursley's foremost draper. As the girl laugh at Maggie, the maid, who is in love yet again, Samuel Povey, an assistant in the shop, arrives suffering from toothache. He later asks for medicine and the girls comply. Cyril falls asleep with his mouth open and, mischievously, Sophia removes his loose tooth with a pair of pliers. At tea, to the girls' embarrassment, he suddenly declares that he must have swallowen his tooth. 2. DEATH IN THE FAMILY. A circus comes to Bursley and although not considered respectable entertainment, Constance persuades her mother to accompany her to see the elephant. Mr Povey escorts the ladies, leaving Sophia to look after her father. However, while they are out, Gerald Scales, a handsome salesman, calls and flirts with Sophia in the shop. Meanwhile, Mr. Baines is left on his own and chokes to death. On hearing the news Mrs Baines is magnificently calm in public, but in private she collapses. 3. WEDDING BELLS. Soon after Mrs. Baines hears that Gerald Scales has inherited money and left his firm. She discovers that her daughter has also gone. A fortnight later, a note from Sophia announces her marriage to Gerald and their departure for Paris. Mrs Baines is distraught. Samuel Povey marries Constance and, back from their honeymoon, they self-consciously settle into the Baines house. On their first night home, Constance chides Samuel for his `horrid' paper collars, which he had not worn on their honeymoon. He is insulted and for a moment they are on the edge of violent quarrel. Six years pass smoothly in hard work and marital happiness. Samuel is almost 40 when Constance announces she is pregnant. 4. SQUANDERED WEALTH. Gerald and Sophia, living abroad, act as if his fortune will last forever. The capital melts away, however, hastened by Gerald's disastrous speculations on the stock exchange. By May 1870 they are almost penniless and are living in cheap hotel. Sophia realizes that her elopement was a mistake and that Gerald is also unfaithful to her. However, she refuses his request to write to her family begging for money. One night Gerald abandons Sophia. She is left with little money, but she manages to lease the pension Frensham, an English hotel in Paris. She knows nothing of hotel-keeping, but her work makes it a success. She is now called Mrs. Frensham by most guests, and continues to have no contact with her family in Bursley. 5. CONTACT RENEWED. Matthew Peel- Swynnerton, from an eminent family in the Five Towns, stays at the Frensham. He suspects its proprietress to be the long vanished aunt of his friend Cyril Povey. Sophia does not react to his enquiries concerning Cyril, but facially she 'reminds Matthew so strongly of his friend that he is certain she is Cyril's aunt. Back in London, Matthew relays the news to Cyril, who is uninterested. Matthew then hastens to Bursly to tell Constance of his meeting with Sophia. She collapses in a shock, for she hasn't heard from her sister in 30 years. She writes a warm letter to Sophia and re-establishes contact. Sophia responds quickly, although she vows never to return to Bursley. However, Constance is in ill health, so Sophia goes to her. 6. FAMILY REUNION. In Bursly, awkward in each other's company after so many years apart, Sophia and Constance chat politely over tea and admire old photographs. Sophia shakes Constance by admitting that she does not know where her husband is, or even if he is still, alive. The next day, Sophia is dismayed by the cramped ugliness of Bursly. However, she has no wish to leave Constance now. 7. DOUBLE DEATH. Unable to persuade Constance to leave Bursly, Sophia stays on but is irritated because she cannot modernise the house. In every other way, however, she rules the home, to Constance's secret annoyance. None the less, the women are happy together until a telegram from Manchester announces that Gerald us ill. Sophia rushes to him, but arrives too late. Looking at his corpse, she grieves bitterly for his lost youth and vigour. Back in Bursly, she has a fit and dies. 8. CONSTANCE'S END. Cyril arrives in time for his aunt's funeral and organizes everything perfectly. He inherits Sophia's considerable fortune but this scarcely affects him, for he drifts through life a dilettante, after failing as an artist. While travelling abroad, he misses his mother's last illness, the gravity of which is hidden from her. Constance accepts her condition with her normal resignation, regretting only that she has spoiled Cyril. She dies calmly in the night.
Arnold Bennett (Author), Eileen Atkins (Narrator)
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Arnold Bennett : The Short Stories
Arnold Bennett - An Introduction. Arnold Bennett was born in 1867 in Hanley one of the six towns that formed the Potteries that later joined together to become Stoke On Trent; the area in which most of his works are located. For a short time he worked for his solicitor father before realising that to advance his life he would need to become his own man. Moving to London at 21 he obtained work as a solicitor's clerk and gradually moved into a career of Journalism. At the turn of the Century he turned full time to writing and shortly thereafter in 1903 he moved to Paris and in 1908 published to great acclaim The Old Wives Tale. With this his reputation was set. Clayhanger and The Old Wives Tale are perhaps his greatest and most lauded novels. But standing next to these are many fine short stories and it is to these in this volume we turn our attention. Bennett bathes us in vignettes of life, of characters that whatever their ambitions are easy to immerse ourselves in. These stories are read for you by Richard Mitchley.
Arnold Bennett (Author), Richard Mitchley (Narrator)
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