Books and Persons

BEING COMMENTS ON A
PAST EPOCH
1908-1911

BY

ARNOLD BENNETT


WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR


NOVELS

A MAN FROM THE NORTH
ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS
LEONORA
A GREAT MAN
SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE
WHOM GOD HATH JOINED
BURIED ALIVE
THE OLD WIVES' TALE
THE GLIMPSE
HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND
CLAYHANGER
HILDA LESSWAYS
THE CARD
THE REGENT
THE PRICE OF LOVE
THESE TWAIN
THE LION'S SHARE

FANTASIAS

THE GRAND BABYLON HOTEL
THE GATES OF WRATH
TERESA OF WATLING STREET
THE LOOT OF CITIES
HUGO
THE GHOST
THE CITY OF PLEASURE

SHORT STORIES

TALES OF THE FIVE TOWNS
THE GRIM SMILE OF THE FIVE TOWNS
THE MATADOR OF THE FIVE TOWNS

BELLES-LETTRES

JOURNALISM FOR WOMEN
FAME AND FICTION
HOW TO BECOME AN AUTHOR
THE TRUTH ABOUT AN AUTHOR
MENTAL EFFICIENCY
HOW TO LIVE ON TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY
THE HUMAN MACHINE
LITERARY TASTE
FRIENDSHIP AND HAPPINESS
THOSE UNITED STATES
PARIS NIGHTS
MARRIED LIFE
LIBERTY
OVER THERE: WAR SCENES
THE AUTHOR'S CRAFT

DRAMA

POLITE FARCES
CUPID AND COMMONSENSE
WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS
THE HONEYMOON
THE GREAT ADVENTURE
MILESTONES. (In Collaboration with Edward Knoblock)

(In Collaboration with Eden Phillpotts)

THE SINEWS OF WAR: A ROMANCE
THE STATUE: A ROMANCE


Books and Persons

BEING COMMENTS ON A
PAST EPOCH
1908-1911

BY

ARNOLD BENNETT


LONDON
Chatto & Windus
1917




First published
June 1917
Second Impression
Aug. 1917




PRINTED AT THE COMPLETE PRESS
WEST NORWOOD
LONDON


TO
HUGH WALPOLE


PREFATORY NOTE

The contents of this book have been chosen from a series of weeklyarticles which enlivened the New Age during the years 1908, 1909, 1910,and 1911, under the pseudonym "Jacob Tonson." The man responsible for therepublication is the dedicatee, who, having mysteriously demanded from meback numbers of the New Age, sat in my house one Sunday afternoon and infour hours read through the entire series. He then announced that he hadmade a judicious selection, and that the selection must positively beissued in volume form. Mr. Frank Swinnerton approved the selection andadded to it slightly. In my turn I suggested a few more additions. Thetotal amounts to one-third of the original matter. Beyond correctingmisprints, softening the crudity of several epithets, and censoring lineshere and there which might give offence without helping the sacred cause,I have not altered the articles. They appear as they were journalisticallywritten in Paris, London, Switzerland, and the Forest of Fontainebleau.In particular I have left the critical judgments alone, for the goodreason that I stand by nearly all of them, though perhaps with a lesschallenging vivacity, to this day.

ARNOLD BENNETT

February 1917


CONTENTS