The Old Wives' Tale (Penguin Classics) - Softcover

Bennett, Arnold

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141442115 ISBN 13: 9780141442112

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2007

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review:

"Bennett's masterpiece... There are few more moving accounts of the effects of time, the passage of history and the slow encroachment of age than this remarkable, epic novel" (Guardian)

"It's not just a wonderful story; it's also an expressionist masterpiece, almost surreal at times. It's also an amazing feat of empathy... It's also very intimate, and highly emotional. In fact, it's the perfect novel" (Deborah Moggach Independent)

"Arguably the finest novel written by an Englishman in the 20th century" (Daily Telegraph)

"Arnold Bennett did write one indisputable masterpiece, The Old Wives' Tale, and that is where I recommend you start... Each time I'm in the midst of reading it, I think it the best novel ever written" (Wendy Lesser New York Times)

"For Bennett...compassion is not soggy. It involves understanding. The core of his writing is psychological truth, clinically observed, crisply reported" (Sunday Times)

Book Description:

A long-neglected twentieth century masterpiece about the lives of two sisters, spanning seventy years of the nineteenth century from Northern England to Paris

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0141442115
• ISBN 13: 9780141442112
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 624
• Editor: Wain John