Grim Smile Of The Five Towns

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By Listen TheBook Posted on May 31, 2023

In Category - Literary Fiction, Single Author Collections

Authors: Arnold Bennett In Year : 1907

Book Language: English

Audiobook: Grim Smile Of The Five Towns

The Lion's Share
Baby's Bath
The Silent Brothers
The Nineteenth Hat
Vera's First Christmas Adventure
The Murder Of The Mandarin
Vera's Second Christmas Adventure
The Burglary
News Of The Engagement
Beginning The New Year
From One Generation To Another
The Death Of Simon Fuge, Part 1
The Death Of Simon Fuge, Part 2
The Death Of Simon Fuge, Part 3
In A New Bottle

The Grim Smile of the Five Towns (1907) is the second major collection of stories written by Arnold Bennett. (The first is Tales Of The Five Towns, 1905, available at Librivox.).The five towns of the title are the conurbation of Stoke-on-Trent in which much of the writer's best work is set. Later [than initial] critics have been kinder to the collection's key story, with Margaret Drabble calling "Simon Fuge"... one of the greatest short stories in the English language", and John Wain remarking that... "it says as much as a novel, it says easily as much as a novel of a hundred thousand words could say on this theme" and naming it... "the best thing that Arnold Bennett ever did." The stories exhibit Bennett's usual dry wit and belie the word "grim" in the title. - Summary by David Wales