and the literal fidelity to
life in _The Old Wives' Tale_ give it a high rank among
twentieth-century English novels.

_Clayhanger_ (1910) is another strong story of life in the "Five
Towns" pottery district of Staffordshire. Although the hero, Edwin
Clayhanger, is not a strong personality, Bennett's art makes us keenly
interested in Edwin's simple, impressionable nature, in his eagerness
for life, and in his experiences as a young dreamer, lover, son, and
brother. _Hilda Lessways_ (1911), a companion volume to _Clayhanger_,
but a story of less power, continues the history of the same
characters. Bennett reveals in these novels one of his prime
gifts,--the skill to paint domestic pictures vividly and to invest
them with a distinct local atmosphere. His art has won a signal
triumph in arousing interest in simple scenes and average characters.
He can present the romance of the commonplace,--of gray, dull
monotonous, almost negative existence.

He has enlivened the contemporary stage with a few brisk comedies.
_Milestones_ was written in collaboration with Edward Knoblauch, an
American author. Its characters, representing three generations,
illustrate humorously the truth that what is to-day's innovation
becomes to-morrow's August convention. _The Honeymoon_ (1911) is a
farce of misunderstandings adroitly handled.

Although Bennett has shown great versatility, yet his individual,
strong, and vital work is found in the one field where he brings us
face to face with the circumscribed, but appealing life of the "Five
Towns" district of his youth.

John Galsworthy.--John Galsworthy was born in Coombe, Surrey, in
1867. He was graduated from Oxford with an honor degree in law in 1889
and was called to the bar in 1890. He traveled for a large part of two
years, visiting, among other places, Russia, Canada, Australia, South
Africa, and the Fiji Islands. On one of these trips he met Joseph
Conrad, then a sailor, and they became warm friends. Galsworthy was
twenty-eight when he began to write.

[Illustration: JOHN GALSWORTHY.]

Four of his novels deal with the upper classes of English society.
_The Man of Property_ (1906) treats of the wealthy class, _The Country
House_ (1907) presents the conservative country squire, _Fraternity_
(1909) portrays the intellectual class, and _The Patrician_ (1911)
pictures the aristocrat. Galsworthy is the relentless analyist of
well-to-do, conventional English society. As Frederic Taber Coop