Publisher's Synopsis
Bennett (1867-1931) was an English writer best known as a novelist but who also worked in other fields such as the theatre, journalism and propaganda. He was born in the Potteries district of Staffordshire, an area which he depicted as the Five Towns in many of his novels. In 1889 he won a literary competition run by Tit-Bits magazine and was encouraged to take up journalism full-time, and in 1894 became assistant editor of Woman magazine for which he began writing serial stories. When his first novel A Man from the North was published to critical acclaim in 1898 he took over as editor, but two years later gave up the editorship to dedicate himself to writing full-time. He continued to write for newspapers and magazines whilst finding success as a novelist and during the First World War became Director of Propaganda for France at the Ministry of Information. This novel was first published in 1923 and was winner of that year's James Tate Black Memorial Prize for fiction. It follows a year in the life of Henry Earlforward, a miserly secondhand bookshop owner in the Clerkenwell area of London.
