Deborah Moggach on Arnold Bennett
Great Lives
BBC
4.2 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 29 April 2014
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Novelist and screenwriter, Deborah Moggach, nominates the Potteries writer Arnold Bennett, whose work she thinks has been wrongly overlooked, as he was considered as being too popular.
Moggach believes that because he was a working writer who earned his living writing both serious and light fiction, he was not taken seriously until after his death in 1931, despite his books being hugely popular during his lifetime. Bennett wrote many novels including ‘Anna of the Five Towns’ and ‘The Old Wives Tale’.
As a journalist, Bennett also wrote self-help and lifestyle articles for magazines including 'How to Bathe a Baby Part One' and 'Do Rich Women Quarrel More Frequently Than Poor?'
Gyles Brandreth has been a lifelong Bennett fan and believes him to be one of the greatest writers of the 20th century who deserves to be rediscovered.
Presenter: Matthew Parris.
Producer: Maggie Ayre.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.
Transcript
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| 0:45.0 | A forgotten author, overshadowed by the likes of Dickens and Elliot before him and War and Graham Green |
| 0:51.1 | after him, or a literary giant of the early 20th century |
| 0:55.0 | who's gone quite undeservedly out of fashion. |
| 0:58.0 | This week's great life is Arnold Bennett, |
| 1:01.0 | the prolific novelist and journalist from the potteries in Staffordshire, as well as |
| 1:05.2 | being one of the very few people to have had an omelet named after them. |
| 1:09.4 | Bennett has been chosen by author Deborah Mogach, whose own books include Tulip Fever, the ex-wives, Heartbreak |
| 1:15.8 | Hotel, and These Foolish Things that became the successful film Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. |
| 1:22.7 | With her to discuss the life and work of Bennett is the broadcaster, author, and great admirer of |
| 1:28.0 | the man, Giles Brandreth. |
| 1:30.5 | Deborah, why have you chosen to disturb the slumber of this writer's reputation? |
| 1:36.4 | Well, because basically he's been slumbering far too long. |
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