Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown is an essay by Virginia Woolf on modern fiction. It explores how novelists create characters, using the imaginary Mrs. Brown as an example, and responds to Arnold Bennett's views. It offers a thoughtful look at the art of writing and the nature of literary character.
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Cover of the original edition (Project Gutenberg, public domain).
Text source: gutenberg.org · The work is in the public domain.
Opening of the book
MR. BENNETT AND
MRS. BROWN
VIRGINIA WOOLF
PUBLISHED BY LEONARD AND VIRGINIA WOOLF
AT THE HOGARTH PRESS TAVISTOCK SQUARE
LONDON W.C.I
1924
MR. BENNETT AND
MRS. BROWN[1]
It seems to me possible, perhaps desirable, that I may be the only person in this room who has committed the folly of writing, trying to write, or failing to write, a novel. And when I asked myself, as your invitation to speak to you about modern fiction made me ask myself, what demon whispered in my ear and urged me to my doom, a little figure rose before me—the figure of a man, or of a woman, who said,
"My name is Brown. Catch me if you can."
Most novelists have the same experience. Some Brown, Smith, or
Jones comes before them and says in the most seductive and charming way in the world, "Come and catch me if you can." And so, led on by this will-o'-the-wisp, they flounder through volume after volume, spending the best years of their lives in the pursuit, and receiving for the most part very little cash in exchange. Few catch the phantom; most have to be content with a scrap of her dress or a wisp of her hair.
My belief that men and women write novels because they are lured on to create some character which has thus imposed itself upon them has the sanction of Mr. Arnold Bennett. In an article from which I will quote he says: "The foundation of good fiction is character-creating and nothing else. . . . Style counts; plot counts; originality of outlook
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