Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) was an English novelist and well-known playwright of his time. In his early career he worked as aclerk, andlater moved to London where he received early success with the novel,A Man from the North(1898). Bennettestablishedhimself as a new voice of English fiction and soon found himself in a feud with another well-known English author Virginia Woolf, over the value of realism versus interior consciousness.

Soon after his success with his debut novel, Bennett achieved popular acclaim withThe Grand Babylon Hotel(1902), a murder mystery set in a luxury hotel, said to be modeled after London's famous Savoy Hotel.

Bennett wrote over thirty novels, thirteen plays, andnumerousshort stories. The Old Wives' Tale(1908) is considered his masterpiece. In 1931, Bennett died in Paris from typhoid fever after drinking contaminated water.