The Card: A Story of Adventure in the Five Towns (Penguin Modern Classics)

Set in the raw, Victorian world of the 'Five Towns', The Card tells the extremely funny and tangled story of Denry Machin's rise from mediocrity to fame through a series of ludicrous and yet perversely successful schemes. He dances, pleads, cheats and inspires his way through life in a series of set-pieces which wonderfully evoke a now long-gone world of civic balls, seaside excursions, newspaper boys and patent chocolate remedies. As everybody said after one of his most stylish coups, Denry 'was not simply a card; he was the card.' Arnold Bennett's ... splendidly comic portrayal of Edward Henry Machin, known as Denry to his mother to save time, is set in Bursley, one of the author's Five Towns of Staffordshire. Starting in 1897, when Denry first saw the smoke of the potbanks, the tale chronicles his rise to fame and wealth including such events as improving his exam results to guarantee success, adjusting the guest list of the municipal ball to include himself and then daring to ask the Countess of Chell to dance! Denry is given a week's notice as a result of this last impertinence but soon turns it to his advantage, setting up in business as a Rent Collector and Estate Agent. Eventually Denry becomes Bursley's youngest Mayor having gained the reputation of the Five Towns greatest 'Card' Author and journalist Arnold Bennett was born in the Potteries district of Staffordshire in England's West Midlands area. So named because of its long-time association with pottery and ceramics production, the Potteries communities exerted a strong influence on Bennett's literary career. Many of his novels, including the action-packed The Card, are set in and around the area