Book description
First published in 1908, The Old Wives' Tale affirms the integrity of
ordinary lives as it tells the story of the Baines sisters--shy,
retiring Constance and defiant, romantic Sophia--over the course of
nearly half a century. Bennett traces the sisters' lives from childhood
in their father's drapery shop in provincial Bursley, England, during
the mid-Victorian era, through their married lives, to the modern
industrial age, when they are reunited as old women. The setting moves
from the Five Towns of Staffordshire to exotic and cosmopolitan Paris,
while the action moves from the subdued domestic routine of the Baines
household to the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War.
Arnold Bennett
(1867-1931) His first novel, A Man From the North
, appeared in 1898 and in 1900 he finished The Grand Babylon Hotel
, published in 1902, and began Anna of the Five Towns
(1902), in which he first started to use the Potteries of his boyhood
as a setting for his novels. The Old Wives' Tale
(1908) was written in France and it was followed by the Clayhanger
trilogy:
Clayhanger (1910), Hilda Lessways
(1911) and These Twain
(1916). His works also include several plays, two volumes of short
stories and several other novels.
