Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. Books and Persons BEING COMMENTS ON A PAST EPOCH 1908-1911 BY ARNOLD BENNETT LONDON Chatto & Windus 1917 WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR _NOVELS_ A MAN FROM THE NORTH ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS LEONORA A GREAT MAN SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE WHOM GOD HATH JOINED BURIED ALIVE THE OLD WIVES' TALE THE GLIMPSE HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND CLAYHANGER HILDA LESSWAYS THE CARD THE REGENT THE PRICE OF LOVE THESE TWAIN THE LION'S SHARE _FANTASIAS_ THE GRAND BABYLON HOTEL THE GATES OF WRATH TERESA OF WATLING STREET THE LOOT OF CITIES HUGO THE GHOST THE CITY OF PLEASURE _SHORT STORIES_ TALES OF THE FIVE TOWNS THE GRIM SMILE OF THE FIVE TOWNS THE MATADOR OF THE FIVE TOWNS _BELLES-LETTRES_ JOURNALISM FOR WOMEN FAME AND FICTION HOW TO BECOME AN AUTHOR THE TRUTH ABOUT AN AUTHOR MENTAL EFFICIENCY HOW TO LIVE ON TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY THE HUMAN MACHINE LITERARY TASTE FRIENDSHIP AND HAPPINESS THOSE UNITED STATES PARIS NIGHTS MARRIED LIFE LIBERTY OVER THERE: WAR SCENES THE AUTHOR'S CRAFT _DRAMA_ POLITE FARCES CUPID AND COMMONSENSE WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS THE HONEYMOON THE GREAT ADVENTURE MILESTONES. (_In Collaboration with Edward Knoblock_) (_In Collaboration with Eden Phillpotts_) THE SINEWS OF WAR: A ROMANCE THE STATUE: A ROMANCE Books and Persons BEING COMMENTS ON A PAST EPOCH 1908-1911 BY ARNOLD BENNETT LONDON Chatto & Windus 1917 _First published June 1917_ _Second Impression Aug. 1917_ PRINTED AT THE COMPLETE PRESS WEST NORWOOD LONDON TO HUGH WALPOLE PREFATORY NOTE The contents of this book have been chosen from a series of weekly articles which enlivened the _New Age_ during the years 1908, 1909, 1910, and 1911, under the pseudonym "Jacob Tonson." The man responsible for the republication is the dedicatee, who, having mysteriously demanded from me back numbers of the _New Age_, sat in my house one Sunday afternoon and in four hours read through the entire series. He then announced that he had made a judicious selection, and that the selection must positively be issued in volume form. Mr. Frank Swinnerton approved the selection and added to it slightly. In my turn I suggested a few more additions. The total amounts to one-third of the original matter. Beyond correcting misprints, softening the crudity of several epithets, and censoring lines here and there which might give offence without helping the sacred cause, I have not altered the articles. They appear as they were journalistically written in Paris, London, Switzerland, and the Forest of Fontainebleau. In particular I have left the critical judgments alone, for the good reason that I stand by nearly all of them, though perhaps with a less challenging vivacity, to this day. ARNOLD BENNETT _February 1917_ CONTENTS 1908