I have lately been having something of a jag – as mentioned here more than once – on the works of Arnold Bennett, whom I consider to be a most unjustly neglected novelist.

Among my recent delights has been the rediscovery of his Clayhanger trilogy (so called) which I last read nearly 40 years ago in the aftermath of an excellent television adaptation starring Janet Suzman and Peter McEnery.

A prominent role was also taken by the New Zealand actor Bruce Purchase whom I was later to know as a friend and Osney Island neighbour.

It was with surprise, and pleasure, that I discovered there is actually a fourth book in the series. This is The Roll Call, which I had downloaded on to my Kindle with no idea of its content.

Bennett’s biographer Margaret Drabble is sniffy about this work. She writes: “There is something peculiarly dispiriting about the whole novel.”

I could not disagree more strongly. The book amused me enormously as it describes a young architect, George Cannon, making his way in London society. Written in 1917, but looking back to the first years of the century, the story is clearly autobiographical.

The novel reveals the love of opulence – of swanky cars and luxury dining – that Virginia Woolf found so off-putting about Bennett. But it also shows his wonderful way with words in recreating the long-gone days of his youth.

I particularly relished – to give just one example – his splendid circumlocution in describing what was clearly a pretty smutty stage show witnessed by his hero.

He wrote: “The jocularity pivoted unendingly on the same twin centres of alcohol and concupiscence. Gradually the latter grew to more and more importance, and the piece became a high and candid homage to the impulse by force of which alone one generation succeeds another.”