ABSTRACT
The man is most honest, and anxious to do justice, wrote Arnold Bennett in his Journal, in reference to the publishers reader's report on his first novel by John Buchan, but he clearly has not been able quite to sympathize with the latest disciple of the de Goncourts. In his Journal for he describes the first requirement of a novelist as an all-embracing Christlike compassion and, whether he can emulate the Deity or not, his range of sympathies is remarkably wide and extends very far into the mundane. At bottom he proudly content with the Pentonville omnibus. Bennett also has a much more real sense than most contemporary novelists of the reality of poverty, of the want which makes money the first step towards a decent life. Bennett staked out his chosen territory with his first novel, A Matt from the North, and consolidated his hold in his first novel of real value, Anna of the Five Towns.
