The Old Wives' Tale (Twentieth Century Classics S.) - Softcover

Bennett, Arnold

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140182551 ISBN 13: 9780140182552

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 1990

Synopsis

"Every stout, ageing woman is not grotesque -- far from it! -- but there is an extreme pathos in the mere fact that that every stout ageing woman was once a young girl with the unique charm of youth in her form and her movements and in her mind. And the fact that the change from the young girl to the stout ageing woman is made up of an infinite number of infinitesimal changes, each unperceived by her, only intensifies the pathos. It was at (the) instant (of this observation) that I was visited by the idea of writing the book which ultimately became The Old Wives' Tale." So writes Arnold Bennett in the preface to his masterpiece of realistic fiction, a book that follows the lives of two sisters, Constance and Sophia, from simple days in mid-Victorian England through the chaos and tumult of the modern age. Along the way, a novel is built, detail by rich detail, that rivals the great realistic works of Balzac, Flaubert, Zola, and Maupassant.Critical commentary on classic books is readily available from academics and career critics. But what do the greats have to say about the greats? In addition to the new Introductions we've commissioned from today's top writers and thinkers, we will provide a full Commentary section, excerpting book reviews and other critical essays from major authors -- E. M. Forster on Sinclair Lewis, Virginia Woolf on Forster, etc. We've edited these pieces down to the most salient and provocative passages, or we're running short pieces at full length.

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: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0140182551
• ISBN 13: 9780140182552
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 624
• Editor: Wain John