In October 1911 Arnold Bennett set sail for New York on the Lusitania. He was in his element, as the Lusitania was one of the first liners built to be like a floating hotel - and he admitted that his secret ambition had always been to be the manager of a grand hotel. In his book about his visit to the USA - Your United States - he details the workings of the ship and life on board, and we get his impressions of New York and places he visited illustrated with archive film. Three years after the Titanic disaster, in 1915, the Lusitania would be sunk by a U-Boat in WWI. We see a touching animation of the end of Lusitania - two months before Bennett visited the Western Front and wrote Over There.       40 min    

In June 1915 Arnold Bennett spent three weeks touring the Western Front in France and Belgium for propaganda purposes, publishing his account later in the year in his book Over There. This review of the early part of the War followed by readings of extracts from the book illustrated with archive films gives a unique perspective on the War from Bennett at the Front.      45 min