Arnold Bennett 
Riceyman Steps (Annotated) 

• This edition includes the following editor’s introduction: Arnold Bennett’s style and the controversy with his contemporaries

Originally published in 1923, “Riceyman Steps” is a novel by British novelist Arnold Bennett, winner of that year’s
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction.



Set in a quiet London square in the 1920s, just after the First World War, “Riceyman Steps” tells the powerful story of Henry Earlforward, a miserly book dealer, and the consequences of his decision to marry Violet Arb, who owns the confectionery shop across the square.