The Old Wives' Tale
The Old Wives' Tale is a novel by Arnold Bennett, first published in 1908. It deals with the lives of two very different sisters, Constance and Sophia Baines, following their stories from their youth, working in their mother's draper's shop, into old age. It covers a period of about 70 years from roughly 1840 to 1905, and is set in Burslem and Paris. It is generally regarded as one of Bennett's finest works.
According to Tom Wolfe (Hooking Up, p. 148), the book was "wildly successful," with the author demurring with "I don't read my reviews, I measure them."
In 1998, the Modern Library ranked The Old Wives' Tale No. 87 on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. It was adapted into a 1921 film The Old Wives' Tale starring Fay Compton. It was made into a TV series by the BBC in 1988 as Sophia and Constance.
Excerpted from The Old Wives' Tale on Wikipedia.
The Old Wives' Tale
| Author | Arnold Bennett |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Genre | Domestic fiction |
| Copyright | Public domain in the United States. |
| Book cover | - |
| Ebooks | Project Gutenberg |
| Scans | Cornell University |
| Audio | Librivox | Internet Archive |
| Read online | The Old Wives' Tale --Read by Andy Minter-- |