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Letters from AB to Cecil Hopkinson from a series of nine letters and miscellaneous handwritten notes
The Archive contains substantial correspondence to Cecil Hopkinson from Bennett’s personal and business contacts as Hopkinson researched a bibliography. The first of this selection was written on Bennett’s birthday in 1929 (which he also celebrated by going for a health check) and indicates his support for the project, while warning of its enormity. As to the ‘dark future’, the reference is presumably not about Bennett’s health since nothing suspicious was found at the medical. On 4/10/1930, apparently in response to a query from Hopkinson about unpublished work, Bennett references the libretto for Don Juan de Manara, and the 30 or so volumes of his journals, but states firmly ‘Apart from this I never write anything that is not published.’ This statement may well be true, indicative of Bennett’s business-like approach to writing, but in another letter Bennett also states that bibliographies should not deal with unpublished writing. The undated handwritten list of queries from Hopkinson elicit Bennett’s assertions that ‘there was no juvenilia’ and that his very first publication was in the Staffordshire Knot, Hanley: ‘I wrote a weekly local gossip article for some time. The date was probably Autumn 1888 to February 1889.’ The Sentinel has more recently and more confidently reported: ‘Arnold Bennett penned his first article for The Sentinel in 1887 about the noise of trains passing his home in Waterloo Road, Cobridge.’ The Archive contains a bound typescript of the bibliography and an advance notice of publication. However, although Hopkinson had a good track record in the field this particular work did not see the light of day.
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