''Riceyman Steps'' is a novel by British novelist
Arnold Bennett
Enoch Arnold Bennett (27 May 1867 – 27 March 1931) was an English author, best known as a novelist. He wrote prolifically: between the 1890s and the 1930s he completed 34 novels, seven volumes of short stories, 13 plays (some in collaboratio ...
, first published in 1923 and winner of that year's
James Tait Black Memorial Prize
The James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are literary prizes awarded for literature written in the English language. They, along with the Hawthornden Prize, are Britain's oldest literary awards. Based at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Uni ...
for fiction. It follows a year in the life of Henry Earlforward, a miserly second-hand bookshop owner in the
Clerkenwell area of
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
.
Background
Arnold Bennett was a keen amateur sailor and it was while on sailing trips on the
Solent
The Solent ( ) is a strait between the Isle of Wight and Great Britain. It is about long and varies in width between , although the Hurst Spit which projects into the Solent narrows the sea crossing between Hurst Castle and Colwell Bay t ...
he discovered a chaotic second-hand bookshop in
Southampton
Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...
. He would visit the shop when bad weather prevented sailing and on one visit he bought a book on
miser
A miser is a person who is reluctant to spend, sometimes to the point of forgoing even basic comforts and some necessities, in order to hoard money or other possessions. Although the word is sometimes used loosely to characterise anyone who ...
s for
sixpence. This book and the shop itself became the inspiration for this novel.
Bennett also loved the
Clerkenwell district of London which with its unpretentious working class life reminded him of his own origins in
the Potteries
The Staffordshire Potteries is the industrial area encompassing the six towns Burslem, Fenton, Hanley, Longton, Stoke and Tunstall, which is now the city of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, England. North Staffordshire became a centre of ...
. The location Riceyman Steps was modelled on Granville Place (now Gwynne Place) the steps of which lead up from
King's Cross Road to Granville Square. Bennett's steps are "twenty in number, ... divided by a half-landing into two series of ten", whereas the steps of Granville Place number (from the bottom) fifteen, with eleven more from the half-landing.
Granville Square
Granville Square is a prominent tower located at 200 Granville Street in the Financial District within the city's downtown core of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Completed in 1973, the building stands at 138.4 metres (454 feet) tall. The to ...
, now a residential square containing a small park, was in 1923 dominated by
St Philip's Church, which was demolished in 1936.
Plot summary
The story takes place in 1919–1920, just after
the First World War, and is divided into five parts. It deals with the final year in the life of its main character, Henry Earlforward, a
miser
A miser is a person who is reluctant to spend, sometimes to the point of forgoing even basic comforts and some necessities, in order to hoard money or other possessions. Although the word is sometimes used loosely to characterise anyone who ...
with a slight limp, who keeps a second-hand bookshop in the
Clerkenwell area of London, at Riceyman Steps. Henry harbours a secret passion for Violet Arb, a widow who inherits a neighbouring confectionery shop. When Henry tries to woo Violet, the widow realizes that they share the same charwoman and maid servant in the simple, loyal Elsie Sprickett.
When Elsie’s boyfriend, the
shell-shock
Shell shock is a term coined in World War I by the British psychologist Charles Samuel Myers to describe the type of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) many soldiers were afflicted with during the war (before PTSD was termed). It is a reac ...
ed war veteran Joe, loses self-control and runs after Violet with a carving-knife at her shop, Henry gallantly intervenes after Violet approaches Henry for help. Violet, who sees in Henry a financially secure future, finally decides to marry him after a short courtship. Joe, meanwhile, disappears after writing a letter to Elsie that he will come for her when he has recovered from his traumatic disorder.
Henry's parsimony drives the married couple into an increasingly wretched existence. He is aghast, for example, when Violet spends fourteen pounds vacuuming his dusty shop as a wedding present. He begins eating less and less, even forgoing meat for cheese, and refuses to go to the hospital to treat his undernourishment when the doctor and his wife insist that he does. All the while Elsie stands devoted to the couple, despite having problems of her own—she pines secretly for Joe, and pilfers food to
binge eat at night.
Their lives—in which Henry’s passion for money and his obstinacy finally consume himself and his wife—are contrasted to that of their loyal maid servant Elsie Sprickett, and it is the latter, despite her extreme poverty, who brings life and a future to the bittersweet tale.
Characters
*Henry Earlforward
*Violet Arb (later Earlforward)
*Elsie Sprickett
*Joe
*Dr Raste
The character of Elsie reappears in ''Elsie and the Child: A Tale of Riceyman Steps and Other Stories'' (1924).
References
* Foreword to the 1953 Penguin edition by
Frank Swinnerton
Frank Arthur Swinnerton (12 August 1884 – 6 November 1982) was an English novelist, critic, biographer and essayist.
He was the author of more than 50 books, and as a publisher's editor helped other writers including Aldous Huxley and Lytton S ...
*''Riceyman Steps'', 1983 reprint (Twentieth Century Classics), Oxford Paperbacks
External links
*
*
*
The Amwell SocietyLocal Clerkenwell society - click on 'history' and look for the slideshow relating to Riceyman Steps. This includes a set of slides with a guide to the area in which the novel is set and pictures of the steps today.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Riceyman Steps
1923 British novels
Fiction set in 1919
Fiction set in 1920
Novels by Arnold Bennett
Novels set in London