Synopsis
First published in 1908, The Old Wives' Tale 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 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 was born in 1867. His first novel, A Man From the North, appeared in 1898. Anna of the Five Towns was published in 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. His works also include several plays...
New York Times Book Review
"Threaded with a wry and ironical observations on the Victorian age."