[A Sheffield Survey organised by Arnold Freeman in 1918, assessing 816 manual workers, gives the following case:] 'Engine tenter, age twenty-seven...Often attends operas...Methodically building up a personal library following the guidelines of Arnold Bennett's Literary Taste. Has read the Bible, Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, Much Ado about Nothing), Pope, Tennyson, Masefield, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Emerson, William Morris,, most of Ruskin, Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, The OLd Curiosity Shop, A Christmas Carol), The Cloister and the Hearth, GK Chesterton, Bernard Shaw (Major Barbara, John Bull's Other Island, The Doctor's Dilemma, Man and Superman, The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet, The Devil's Disciple, You Never Can Tell, Socialism and Superor Brains, Fabian Essays, An Unsocial Socialist, The Irrational Knot), John Galsworthy, about a dozen books by H.G. Wells and perhaps twenty by Bennett, Sidney and Beatrice Webb's Industrial Democracy and other books on trade unionism, Sir Oliver Lodge, Edward Carpenter's Towards Democracy and The Intermediate Sex, J.A. Hobson and Alfred Marshall on Economics and Plato's Republic'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent Print: Book
'Swinnerton feels sure that C & W would be willing to publish a new edition of "How to become an Author". I gave him the book to read and he is enthusiastic about it.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Frank Swinnerton Print: Book
'There is only one trouble about the proofs. That is: the title is wrong. (This not your fault, but some copyist?s.) It ought to be Helen with the High Hand. I really want this "with". I cannot imagine how the mistake arose. I shall put headings to the chapters, as I think these make a book more readable.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Manuscript: Codex
'The reading of the "Man from the North" has inspired me with the greatest respect for your artistic conscience. I am profoundly impressed with the achievement of style.[...] as you may suppose I've read the book more than once. Unfortunately I don't know how to criticise; to discuss however I am ready.'
Hence follow about ten lines of constructive criticism of what Conrad calls the 'design' of the novel.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'But if I could not find time to write to you [to acknowledge receipt of the presentation copy] I had found time to read your book. I read it once, twice,then kept it upstairs for dipping into when I came up to bed.'
Hence follow twenty lines of praise and an invitation to Pent Farm to further discuss the work.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'You must think me a brute. I don't even attempt to palliate an inexcusable delay in thanking you for "Leonora".[...] Yes. you can do things; you present them with a skill and a language for which I wish to thank you as distinc[t]ly as possible, and with all the respect due to such a remarkable talent.[...] And here the first criticism that occurs is that there is not enough of Leonora herself. [...] And that's about the only objection that can be made to the book as a work. With the sheer pleasure of reading it, that-say-defect- does not interfere.'
Thence follow sixteen more lines of constructive criticism.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
'I am wholly delighted with your "R.[iceyman] S.[teps]. Wholly. You will give me credit for not having missed any special gems but it is the whole achievement as I went from page to page that secured my admiration. [...] I closed the book at 7 in the morning after the shortest sleepless night of my experience [...]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad Print: Book
