The Grand Babylon Hotel: A Ripping Good Yarn

ARNOLD BENNETT'S 1902 NOVEL The Grand Babylon Hotel is a ripping good yarn, and Randi Saloman's new edition for Broadview truly does it justice. Bennett's name is often and unfortunately yoked with Virginia Woolf's, thanks to the latter's "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown" wherein she critiques the Edwardian "materialist" for laying "enormous stress upon the fabric of things." Yet it is precisely Bennett's attention to what goes into making the world of The Grand Babylon—both for the characters involved in its workings and inhabiting its milieu, and for the readers entering into what he has subtitled "A Fantasia on Modern Themes"—that renders the novel so pleasurable.

A brief plot summary: the New York millionaire Theodore Racksole is a guest at The Grand Babylon in London with his daughter Nella. On their first evening at the hotel, before they have even finished dinner, Racksole decides to buy the place. Immediately upon the conclusion of the deal, strange things start happening: a body is discovered which seems to be linked to the disappearance of a German prince; employees of the hotel begin vanishing; it is suspected that there is a plot being perpetrated by Bosnians in collusion with the chef. Nella, the intrepid young heiress, sets out to solve the mystery and finds herself in short order both kidnapped and in the midst of a romance with yet another German prince. There are many pleasures to be had here, from the opening scene of our protagonist Racksole ordering an Angel Kiss (a concoction of maraschino, cream, and crème de menthe, which really does sound kind of revolting) to the astonishingly implausible escape from Belgium by yacht of our heroine Nella from abduction and near doom, to the mysterious Bosnians lurking in the shadows. There are secret passageways and poisoned bottles of wine and brain fever, and chapters that end with breathless cliffhangers. One can only imagine how much fun the readers of the 1901 serialization in the Golden Penny were having.

Saloman matches the exuberance and vivacity—and the rich detail—of her subject in the first-rate and well-written scholarly apparatus she provides as part of this new edition. Like other Broadview editions, this one comes complete with an extensive and illuminating introduction, appendices providing important background and context on author and work, and detailed explanatory footnotes. Saloman begins by acknowledging that not only does Bennett go somewhat neglected in studies of late-nineteenth and early twentieth-century fiction; The Grand Babylon Hotel goes neglected in studies of Bennett. Quickly, however, she makes a very clear and persuasive case for the recuperation of Bennett's "fantasia," his first best seller. The introduction provides biographical information and details about Bennett's career at the time of working on The Grand Babylon Hotel. Reception of Bennett's work, including reviews of the novel and how readers responded to publications of his later career, are also addressed (including the devastating long-term effect of Woolf's critique). Finally, the introduction takes up key themes of the novel, particularly as reflected through the American characters and the space of the hotel. Readers who would like to try their hand at teaching Bennett's novel will find this section especially useful.

The appendices are similarly robust. They include excerpts from Bennett's journal and letters from the time of writing The Grand Babylon Hotel, contemporary reviews, and archival material on the various attempts to produce film adaptations of the novel (one of which was achieved, though the film is now lost; another of which, dating from the 1970s, never realized). Two sections are particularly interesting. The first is a selection of Bennett's writing on writing, which speaks directly and effectively to those who might know the author only through Woolf's critique of the "Edwardians." In his 1914 The Author's Craft he writes: "A great novelist must have great qualities of mind. His mind must be sympathetic, quickly responsive, courageous, honest...