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Leonora: A Novel
Enoch Arnold Bennett (May 27, 1867-March 27, 1931). He was born in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, one of six towns in the area known as the Potteries where many of his novels were set.
- GenresClassics
349 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1975
About the author
Arnold Bennett
1,042 books318 followersEnoch Arnold Bennett was an English author, best known as a novelist, who wrote prolifically. Between the 1890s and the 1930s he completed 34 novels, seven volumes of short stories, 13 plays (some in collaboration with other writers), and a daily journal totalling more than a million words. He wrote articles and stories for more than 100 newspapers and periodicals, worked in and briefly ran the Ministry of Information during the First World War, and wrote for the cinema in the 1920s. Sales of his books were substantial, and he was the most financially successful British author of his day.
Born into a modest but upwardly mobile family in Hanley, in the Staffordshire Potteries, Bennett was intended by his father, a solicitor, to follow him into the legal profession. Bennett worked for his father before moving to another law firm in London as a clerk at the age of 21. He became assistant editor and then editor of a women's magazine before becoming a full-time author in 1900. Always a devotee of French culture in general and French literature in particular, he moved to Paris in 1903; there the relaxed milieu helped him overcome his intense shyness, particularly with women. He spent ten years in France, marrying a Frenchwoman in 1907. In 1912 he moved back to England. He and his wife separated in 1921, and he spent the last years of his life with a new partner, an English actress. He died in 1931 of typhoid fever, having unwisely drunk tap-water in France.
Many of Bennett's novels and short stories are set in a fictionalised version of the Staffordshire Potteries, which he called The Five Towns. He strongly believed that literature should be accessible to ordinary people and he deplored literary cliques and élites. His books appealed to a wide public and sold in large numbers. For this reason, and for his adherence to realism, writers and supporters of the modernist school, notably Virginia Woolf, belittled him, and his fiction became neglected after his death. During his lifetime his journalistic "self-help" books sold in substantial numbers, and he was also a playwright; he did less well in the theatre than with novels but achieved two considerable successes with Milestones (1912) and The Great Adventure (1913).
Studies by Margaret Drabble (1974), John Carey (1992), and others have led to a re-evaluation of Bennett's work. The finest of his novels, including Anna of the Five Towns (1902), The Old Wives' Tale (1908), Clayhanger (1910) and Riceyman Steps (1923), are now widely recognised as major works.
Born into a modest but upwardly mobile family in Hanley, in the Staffordshire Potteries, Bennett was intended by his father, a solicitor, to follow him into the legal profession. Bennett worked for his father before moving to another law firm in London as a clerk at the age of 21. He became assistant editor and then editor of a women's magazine before becoming a full-time author in 1900. Always a devotee of French culture in general and French literature in particular, he moved to Paris in 1903; there the relaxed milieu helped him overcome his intense shyness, particularly with women. He spent ten years in France, marrying a Frenchwoman in 1907. In 1912 he moved back to England. He and his wife separated in 1921, and he spent the last years of his life with a new partner, an English actress. He died in 1931 of typhoid fever, having unwisely drunk tap-water in France.
Many of Bennett's novels and short stories are set in a fictionalised version of the Staffordshire Potteries, which he called The Five Towns. He strongly believed that literature should be accessible to ordinary people and he deplored literary cliques and élites. His books appealed to a wide public and sold in large numbers. For this reason, and for his adherence to realism, writers and supporters of the modernist school, notably Virginia Woolf, belittled him, and his fiction became neglected after his death. During his lifetime his journalistic "self-help" books sold in substantial numbers, and he was also a playwright; he did less well in the theatre than with novels but achieved two considerable successes with Milestones (1912) and The Great Adventure (1913).
Studies by Margaret Drabble (1974), John Carey (1992), and others have led to a re-evaluation of Bennett's work. The finest of his novels, including Anna of the Five Towns (1902), The Old Wives' Tale (1908), Clayhanger (1910) and Riceyman Steps (1923), are now widely recognised as major works.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 13, 2012
Interesting portrayal of a privileged mom with grown children over 100 years ago in Stoke-on-Trent. The ending was a little too neat, but maybe this is what happens to people who do everything right. Arnold Bennett wrote for a women's magazine and he has a lot of insight into things that would appeal to women...
September 24, 2015
This was going really well, sound characters, plenty of suspense, a nice dog.....and then the end, pah, a happy ending absolutely ruined it. Bennett should have had the courage to end it the way it seemed to be going. Maybe this is why he's largely forgotten as a writer.
July 6, 2014
Arnold Bennett never disappoints.
A lovely story about Leonora and her children as they grow up.
A husband who speculates and a lover!
A lovely story about Leonora and her children as they grow up.
A husband who speculates and a lover!
February 5, 2023
Gave up on this. Sooo descriptive of people’s relationships, clearly setting up an inheritance problem and resolution. Just not enough to keep me reading.
August 28, 2025
Loved this story. The author's intimate description of a waltz was the most romantic of all the Regency/Victorian romances I have ever read, and it has been at least a thousand by now.
January 27, 2020
Brilliantly written, but somehow lacks a story.
Leonara is a nice woman approaching middle age, or what was middle age then, meaning 40 or so. One of her daughters excells as a singer in Gilbert&Sullivan operas. She falls in love with some American, but in the end, stays with family.
Leonara is a nice woman approaching middle age, or what was middle age then, meaning 40 or so. One of her daughters excells as a singer in Gilbert&Sullivan operas. She falls in love with some American, but in the end, stays with family.
January 4, 2015
As with all Bennett's books I thoroughly enjoyed this. He is such a brilliant writer and much overlooked these days. He writes so well from the woman's point of view.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews