We still have a few places left for our annual Literary Lunch Wednesday 3rd December 2025 AT The Upper House 12.30 for 1pm Guest speakers: Dr Jonathan Taylor University of Leicester Dr Lisa Blower Lecturer in Creative Writing Keele Email [email protected] for full details.

Entertaining Mr Bennett, a FREE film at the Dudson Centre, Hope street, Hanley. 6th December. A compilation of archive films and recodings of things Bennett found entertaining and sometimes used in his writing. Famous stars he knew at the SAVOY HOTEL.

It certainly does, though I don’t currently have a Bennett on the curriculum. He does get an honourable mention. The New Vic’s recent production of The Grand Babylon Hotel was a real treat.

Help me get this word out? Thanks! Scholarships available, full schedule soon

It's our AGM tomorrow afternoon (Sat 25th)! At Swan Bank ST6 2AA, or via Zoom link emailed to Society members

We remember John Lucas especially for his 1974 book-length study of Arnold Bennett's fiction

RIP Patricia Routledge. Not the least of her achievements was her role in the musical Darling of the Day (with Vincent Price!), adapted from Arnold Bennett's novel Buried Alive

The Dudson Centre is in Hope Street, Hanley ST1 5DD

Coming up on Saturday afternoon, for your delight ...

'My absence has had the effect of showing me how well I am established in Paris. Wherever I go, in restaurants and shops, I am recognized and greeted with the warmest cordiality. In three places today I have been the subject of an ovation ...(1/2)

The first of our (free) Heritage Open Day walks is tomorrow, starting at Stoke's Dudson Centre at 2pm. Details at our website

Arnold Bennett in journal, 12 Sept 1898: 'Partly owing to the influence of [Eden] Phillpotts, I have decided very seriously to take up fiction for a livelihood. A certain chronic poverty had forced upon me the fact that I was giving no attention to money-making, beyond my editorship ... (1/3)

London's BFI Southbank (aka the National Film Theatre) is running an Anna May Wong season, so of course there are showings of Piccadilly, 'one of the silent era’s most captivating films', with a scenario by Arnold Bennett whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/defau...

Get to know Arnold Bennett's Five Towns: We have some free Bennett-themed guided walks around Hanley and Burslem for Heritage Open Days on 17 and 19 September, and beyond. Details on our website, and book here: www.ticketsource.co.uk/whats-on?q=A...

ON NOW 8th August - 7th September FAMOUS FACES FROM STOKE-ON-TRENT’S PAST KID’S TRAIL – Celebrating Stoke100 10am to 3pm FREE TRAIL A free family trail featuring famous faces from Stoke-on-Trent's past. No pre-booking required, just visit our Visitor Desk to take part #stokeontrent

Arnold Bennett admired Wells's 1895 short story'The Cone' (whose protagonist is the manager of a Potteries ironworks), and wrote to him that he was 'very glad to find that the Potteries made such an impression on you. ... only during the last few years have I begun to see its possibilities'

#onthisday in 1918 (26 August) Arnold Bennett wrote to the War Office recommending T.S. Eliot for the Interpreters Corps: 'I have pleasure in stating that Mr T.S. Eliot … has an intimate knowledge of the French language. Also that he is a writer of distinguished merit'

Arnold Bennett's 'artistic advantage' over Virginia Woolf; our author's fondness for heaving bosoms; @sathnam.bsky.social's Marriage Material on stage ... All this and more in the Society's latest newsletter, newly arrived in members' mailboxes

The New Vic Theatre has announced full casting for its world premiere production of The Grand Babylon Hotel, a riotous comedy thriller by Arnold Bennett

#onthisday in 1927 (4 Aug) in his Evening Standard column Arnold Bennett continued his 'remarks' on Victorian novelists with George Eliot, Disraeli, Marryat and Trollope - concluding that 'I have not discussed him who is conceivably the greatest of the Victorians. Of course I mean Thomas Hardy'

Tckets selling fast for this adaptation of Arnold Bennett's classic thriller www.newvictheatre.org.uk/productions/...

#onthisday in 1917 (24 July) Arnold Bennett dined with JM Barrie, Thomas Hardy and wife. Hardy “has all his faculties, unimpaired. Quite modest and without the slightest pose,” AB wrote in his journal [Hardy was then aged 77]

The New Vic Theatre in Newcastle-under-Lyme will stage the world premiere of The Grand Babylon Hotel, a new adaptation of Arnold Bennett’s only thriller, this autumn

Arnold Bennett in his journal, 3 July 1897, enjoying the Earl's Court exhibition

[Blog] Arnold Bennett, le Grand Hôtel Babylon (1902). Roman d’hôtel, l’un des premiers du genre, mêlant aventures internationales, satire sociale, romance et comédie loufoque. www.locus-solus-fr.net?p=1545

@bylinefestival.bsky.social @keeleuniversity.bsky.social talking about my 100Books in a 100Years project for the Stoke centenary. Come say hello! @artscouncilengland.bsky.social

A very happy birthday to my friend, the redoubtable poet, professor, novelist, critic, essayist, jazzman & internet avoiding publisher, John Lucas, 88 today. Here's John in his & Pauline's Beeston garden last week with one of Shoestring Press's many writers, Michael Eaton. shoestringpress.co.uk

A happy 88th birthday to John Lucas, author of the still-invaluable 1974 study of Arnold Bennett's novels, and participant in our recent celebration of John Wain's centenary

On 18 June 1926 Arnold Bennett was asked to write an article on “Marriage 100 years hence” for the Daily News. “What footling subjects these editors choose” he noted in his journal

'End of Shift' Stoke City of Fire and Beautiful Bricks’ Exhibition at The Glosthouse, Longton. Stoke-On-Trent. www.theglosthouse.co.uk An ongoing exhibition of Works both new, and never before exhibited. Painting : Drawing : Collage. Poetry : @minxyowlwriter.bsky.social #Stoke100 #SoT100

My review of Jonathan Taylor's prize-winning short story collection, 'Scablands and Other Stories' (Salt Publishing) is up on the Word Factory journal. Managed to prise my copy from Teddy's clutches...

Today we are celebrating 100 years of the City of Stoke -o-Trent. Great people and excellent pottery

Writing Home: Arnold Bennett, Stoke and Me  Jonathan Taylor “No-one ever comes to Stoke, no-one ever leaves Stoke, except for Arnold Bennett, and even he had to write about it”: when I was growing up in Stoke-on-Trent (aka the Potteries) in the 1970s and 80s, this was a saying that everyone knew.…

'I was out at 8 a.m. today. Certainly what interests me is organization. Outside the Magasins du Louvre, the despatch of thousands of parcels in dozens of vans was in full swing. A great effect' - Arnold Bennett in journal, 3 June 1908 (he was living in Paris at the time)

At lunch time yesterday saw Marriage Material. It is set in Wolverhampton and is based on @Arnold Bennett’s Old wives tales 1908.He was the best author from Stoke -on-Trent.

3/3 A number of buildings in Stoke-on-Trent have blue plaques giving the names they're known by in Bennett's novels. This one is on the Old Town Hall in Burslem, which became 'Bursley' in Bennett's fictional landscape. A strange yet pleasing alternative universe overlaying the real one!

This is an aspect of our author which hasn't, we suspect, been given much attention #ArnoldBennett

The author Arnold Bennett was born ##OTD 27 May 1867 in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent. He was prolific and successful, many of his books set in what he called 'the five towns' of the Potteries. He sits reading in Bethesda Street, Hanley, outside the Potteries Art Gallery and Museum. 1/3

#onthisday in 1867 Arnold Bennett was born. 'Today I am 37,' he wrote in his journal on 27 May 1904. 'I have lived longer than I shall live.' (This turned out to be true: he died in 1931, at the age of 63)

In today's Stoke Sentinel, Fred Hughes acclaims the Arnold Bennett Book Prize and contemplates the area's other literary associations

"Do you not perceive that the roof which habitually shelters all the force, all the authority of the world, must necessarily also shelter nameless and numberless plotters, evil-doers & workers of mischief? The thing is as clear as day – and as dark as night." jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025/05/13/t...

Another outing for the 1952 adaptation of Arnold Bennett's The Card, starring Alec Guinness, Glynis Johns and a young Petula Clark (director Ronald Neame; screenplay by Eric Ambler; music by William Alwyn)

'Rickards and I went over the vast, unfinished Roman Catholic Cathedral in Victoria Street, and found it distinguished, impressive, a work of great and monumental art' - Arnold Bennett in journal, 22 May 1901 [The architect E.A. Rickards was a long-time friend of Bennett's]

"Arnold Bennett was the writer who changed my life when I was 17" le.ac.uk/news/2025/ma...

... and here's a pic of prizewinner Jonathan Taylor, with Morag Jones, head of our judging panel, at yesterday's Arnold Bennett Day

🎉 Congratulations to Jonathan Taylor! 🎉 We are thrilled to share that Jonathan Taylor’s stunning short story collection, Scablands, has just won the 2025 Arnold Bennett Prize! 📚 Discover Scablands www.saltpublishing.com/products/sca... #ArnoldBennettPrize #ShortStories #JonathanTaylor #Scablands

It's tomorrow!

There's still time to register for this Saturday's event - booking form available at www.arnoldbennettsociety.org.uk

This is good