Bibliographies, News, and Notes

19 BIBLIOGRAPHIES. NEIg. AND NOTES Compiled and Edited by H. E. Gerber and E. S. Lauterbach AU authors on whom work is actively in progress are listed, even though on some of them no items will appear under their names until we have completed the thorough bibliographies now in progress (eg, Conrad, Hardy, Lawrence, H. H. Richardson, Schreiner). Listing of items on a few other authors under whose names we have previously published annotations are being withheld until the more comprehensive bibliographies now in progress have been completed (eg, Crackanthorpe , Galsworthy, Gissing, Kipling, Sir Hugh WaIpole, Israel Zangwill). Parts of this section are now permanently assigned to specific individuals, who receive appropriate credit. Scattered items annotated by members of our staff and various helpful friends are initialed or signed individually. ARNOLD BENNETT By James G. Kennedy [James G. Hepburn is continuing his prodigious research on Bennett: his critical study should soon be ready for press (Indiana University), and he is hard at work on several other major projects. Robert K. Black (109 Lorraine Ave., Upper Montclair, N. J.), in his Catalogue 89, offers for sale ($22.50) an ALS (5 Feb 1902) to Colles, Bennett's agent. — HEG] "Bennett—'Unrivalled Publicist for the Potteries,'" EVENING SENTINEL (Staffordshire), 28 May I962, p. 3. Notes on this item unavailable. Booth, Wayne C. THE RHETORIC OF FICTION. Chicago: University of Chicago P, I96I. Pp. 53n, 56, ]¥i-k7. Analyzes a passage from THE OLD WIVES' TALE (III, i) to show the significance of the reader's belief in the same values as the intrusive author's and that B's Intrusiveness helps to assure the reader's "right" judgement. [HEG) Bradley, John. "Books in English: Literature," BOOKS ABROAD, XXIX (Autumn 1955), 475. Review of THE JOURNALS OF ARNOLD BENNETT (Penguin). The "complex portrait" of B that "emerges" from his journals reveals that he has been "maligned" "as snob, lover of luxury, and literary charlatan." Crockett, William M. "Arnold Bennett, I898-I908." Doctoral dissertation. University of Chicago (June 1955). University of Chicago microfilm No, 2713. Appendix I, pp. 326-34, reprints B's essay "Plot," from ACADEMY AND LITERATURE , LXII (22 Mar 1902), 315-16. Appendix II, pp. 335-62, "Balzac, Maupassant, and THE OLD WIVES' TALE." Part I traces B's use of a "convention of naturalism" in the 'serious' novels that he wrote between I898 and 1908; A MAN FROM THE NORTH, ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS, LEONORA, SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE, ViHOM GOD HATH JOINED, and THE OLD WIVES' TALE. "Self-educated In the evolution philosophy of Darwin and Spencer," B conceived the universe "In terms of Force," explained events by "natural laws," and saw "man as the product of his heredity and his 20 environment." B's "usual" plot of character is a conflict between the inherited temperament of an individual and his acquired moral character. B's naturalism also directs the "general form or emotional effect" of his serious novels: pathos for a sympathetic individual whose moral principles defeat the desires of his temperament. B's naturalistic philosophy appears explicitly in SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE, WHOM GOD HATH JOINED, and THE OLD WIVES' TALE. Crockett sees B's development to 1908 mainly in his mastery, at last, of his typical plot of character. A lack of "creative tension," due to Richard Larch's weak temperament, results in a weak plot of character in A MAN FROM THE NORTH. ANNA also shows lack of economy in digressive descriptions and underplayed scenes, but its plot has a strong end. Anna's renunciation of Willie Price is pathetic—after gaining freedom from her father, she must bow to her moral character—even though her inner conflict is undeveloped. LEONORA'S too convenient, happy ending is "cheap," since while the heroine's dissatisfaction with her love life is "adolescent," her principles are obviously too strong for her. SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE is worse: even more narrowly than Leonora's conflict, B limits Carlotta's to a struggle between her sexua! temperament and conventional morality. Although Carlotta's character changes, B omits the process of change and lets the plot depend upon accidents. WHOM GOD HATH JOINED does not relate closely enough its two...