The Old Wives' Tale [Paperback]

First published in 1908,The Old Wives' Taleaffirms 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.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.Arnold Bennett(1867-1931) was born in Hanley, Staffordshire. After a secondary school education, he wroked first for his father, a self-taught solicitor, and then moved to London as a shorthand clerk with a firm of solicitors. He began to write to make extra money and his first novel,A Man From the North, appeared in 1898. In 1900 he finishedThe Grand Babylon Hotel, published in 1902, and beganAnna 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) andThese Twain(1916). His works also include several plays, two volumes of short stories and several otl³Q