The Grim Smile of the Five Towns

The Grim Smile of the Five Towns is the second major collection of stories written by Arnold Bennett. The book first appeared in print in June 1907. Only around half of the stories had previously appeared in print. The five towns of the title are the conurbation of Stoke-on-Trent in which much of the writer's best work is set.

The Grim Smile of the Five Towns
AuthorArnold Bennett
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
GenreShort stories
PublisherChapman and Hall, Ltd.
Publication date
1907
Media typePrint (hardcover)
Pages302pp

Stories
  • "The Lion's Share".
  • "Baby's Bath".
  • "The Silent Brothers".
  • "The Nineteenth Hat".
  • "Vera's First Christmas Adventure".
  • "The Murder of the Mandarin".
  • "Vera's Second Christmas".
  • "The Burglary".
  • "News of the Engagement".
  • "Beginning of the New Year".
  • "From One Generation to Another".
  • "The Death of Simon Fuge".
  • "In a New Bottle".

Reception

Bennett anticipated that the collection would help to establish his stature as a writer, showing that he could rise above what he termed his "potboilers". But the book had some initial sharp criticism from press reviewers. Critics focused especially on the macabre story "In a New Bottle" (the Staffordshire Sentinel called it "nasty" and The Bookman termed it "grotesque")[1] and on the sexual frankness of the long story "The Death of Simon Fuge". For instance the 1907 Spectator review remarked that "Simon Fuge"... "very much oversteps the boundaries of good taste".[2] "Simon Fuge", not having been written for what Bennett called the "unperceptive stupidity"[3] of the magazine audiences, was able to be bold with its themes and approach.

Later critics have been kinder to the collection's key story, with Margaret Drabble calling "Simon Fuge"... "one of the greatest short stories in the English language",[4] and John Wain remarking that... "it says as much as a novel, it says easily as much as a novel of a hundred thousand words could say on this theme" and naming it... "the best thing that Arnold Bennett ever did."[5]

Despite few reviews and lacklustre sales of The Grim Smile of the Five Towns, the deft work of Bennett's literary agent meant that the book's new stories proved to be very profitable.[6]

The Five Towns

The industrial district, now city, of Stoke-on-Trent consists of six towns which joined in 1910. The conurbation has become known as "The Five Towns" because of the name given to it by local novelist Arnold Bennett. In his novels, Bennett used mostly recognisable aliases for five of the six towns (although he called Stoke "Knype"). However, Bennett said that he believed "Five Towns" was more euphonious than "Six Towns", so he omitted the lesser town of Fenton.

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References
  1. James Hepburn, Arnold Bennett (Routledge Critical Heritage series), 2013, page 37.
  2. The Spectator, 3 August 1907, page 25.
  3. Margaret Drabble, Arnold Bennett: A Biography, 2012.
  4. Margaret Drabble, "In the path of Priestley", The Guardian, 26 January 2008.
  5. John Wain, "Remarks on the short story", Journal of the Short Story in English, 41, 2003, pages 157-174.
  6. Mary Ann Gillies, The Professional Literary Agent in Britain, 1880-1920, University of Toronto Press, 2007, page 95.
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