Stories from the Five Towns. Arnold Bennett

p>Arnold Bennett

      STORIES FROM THE FIVE TOWNS

      STORIES FROM THE FIVE TOWNS

      Bursley, Hanbridge, Knype, Longshaw, Turnhill – these are the Five Towns of Arnold Bennett’s stories, set in the English Midlands in the early 1900s. Today the Five Towns are the city of Stoke-on-Trent, but the place is still famous for its pottery … and for the people in Arnold Bennett’s stories.

      They are not famous or important people. They work in shops and factories; they fall in, and out of, love; they argue and they quarrel. Sometimes they are clever and successful, and sometimes they do very stupid things. Philip has some important news to tell his mother, but he is also going to get a big surprise … Sir Jee hates his portrait, but what can he do about it? It was a present from the people of the Five Towns … At Knype station, Toby Hall suddenly decides to take the train to Turnhill, but why? Then there are John and Robert. They are brothers, they live in the same house, they eat meals together – and neither has said a single word to the other for ten years …

OXFORD

UNIVERSITY PRESS

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford

It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,

and education by publishing worldwide in

Oxford New York

Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi

Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi

New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto

With offices in

Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece

Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore

South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam

OXFORD and OXFORD ENGLISH are registered trade marks of

Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries

This simplified edition © Oxford University Press 2008

Database right Oxford University Press (maker)

First published in Oxford Bookworms 1996

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

No unauthorized photocopying

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,

without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press,

or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate

reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction

outside the scope of the above should be sent to the ELT Rights Department,

Oxford University Press, at the address above

You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover

and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer

Any websites referred to in this publication are in the public domain and

their addresses are provided by Oxford University Press for information only

Oxford University Press disclaims any responsibility for the content

ISBN 978 0 19 479072 7

A complete recording of this Bookworms edition of

Stories from the Five Towns is available on audio CD ISBN 978 0 19 478995 0

Printed in Hong Kong

Illustrated by: Martin Hargreaves

Word count (main text): 5540 words

For more information on the Oxford Bookworms Library,

visit www.oup.com/elt/bookwormswww.oup.com/elt/bookworms