SOURCE: “A Study of Arthur Morrison,” in Essays and Studies, Vol. 5, 1952, pp. 77-89.

In the following essay, Bell provides a biographical survey of Morrison's writing.

At a distance of half a century an age is no longer dismissed as old-fashioned; its historical importance and period singularity are recognized. The Victorians and Edwardians are reappearing, freshly presented in reprints and radio serials and revalued in biography and criticism. Arthur Morrison is among them. Born in 1863, he belongs in literature to the 1890's and the turning century, finishing his best work by 1902 but writing throughout the Edwardian reign until he retired in 1913. He was one of those contemporary best-sellers who could be found on every Edwardian bookshelf, but who vanished in the Great War and were unknown to the new and changed generation which followed; and now that, once again, the novels which made his name are in the bookshops...