Arnold Bennett

Buried in Life Arnold Bennett

A sensational comedy of entanglement, impersonation and double identities, chosen by Jorge Luis Borges as part of his personal library. Priam Farll is the most renowned painter in England: famous for his paintings of policemen and penguins, he is adored by the public and critics. Shy as a fawn, no one knows what he looks like, for he has lived abroad for years with his servant Henry Leek, a rogue by volume and back. One day he returns to London incognito, and Leek has the bad touch with his master of dying suddenly of pneumonia. The doctor who certifies the death mistakes Leek for Priam Farll, and soon the news spreads like wildfire: the great painter is dead. Farll sees the open sky and decides not to lead the world out of its error: he pretends to be Henry Leek, and even attends his own funeral at Westminster Abbey. It is then that a widowed Putney widow, Alice Challice, who was betrothed by correspondence with Leek, enters the scene, and with whom Farll will ally himself to fight against the adversities of modern life.