Hilda Lessways (Annotated)

Arnold Bennett's Hilda Lessways is a searching realist study of a young woman's consciousness, set amid the constricting respectability and commercial energies of the Staffordshire "Five Towns." Parallel to and intersecting with Clayhanger, the novel follows Hilda from restless provincial girlhood into work, emotional risk, and a disastrous entanglement with George Cannon. Bennett's prose combines...