Riceyman Steps

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Riceyman Steps is the title of a novel by British novelist Arnold Bennett, first published in 1923.

Arnold Bennet was a keen amateur sailor and it was while on sailing trips on the Solent he discovered a chaotic second hand bookshop in Southampton. He would visit the shop when bad weather prevented sailing and on one visit he bought a book on misers for sixpence. This book and the shop itself became the inspiration for this novel. Bennet also loved the Clerkenwell district of London which with its unpretentious working life reminded him of his own origins in the Potteries. The Riceyman Steps are in reality Gwynne Place which rises steeply off the Kings Cross Road to Granville Square.

[edit] Plot summary

The story takes place in 1919 - 1920 and deals with the final year in the life of its main character, Henry Earlforward, a miser, who keeps a second hand bookshop in the Clerkenwell area of London. Henry marries Violet Arb, a widow who keeps a neighbouring shop, and who sees in Henry a financially secure future. Henry's parsimony drives them into an increasingly wretched existence. Their lives are contrasted to that of their maid servant Elsie Sprickett and it is she who brings life and a future to the unfolding tragedy.

[edit] Characters

The character of Elsie reappears in Elsie and the Child: A Tale of Riceyman Steps and Other Stories (1924).

[edit] References

• Forward to the 1953 Penguin edition by Frank Swinnerton.

• Riceyman Steps 1983 reprint ,(Twentieth Century Classics) Oxford Paperbacks ISBN 0-19-281373-0