Arnold Bennett 
The Old Wives’ Tale 

The Old Wives’ Tale Arnold Bennett – The Old Wives’ Tale is a novel by English author Arnold Bennett, first published in 1908. Inspired by an old lady that Bennett saw in a cafe, and wondering how her life had been when she was younger, The Old Wives’ Tale is the story of the Baines sisters, shy, retiring Constance, and defiant, romantic Sophia. The novel traces their lives from childhood in their father’s drapery shop in Bursley, England, through their married lives, to the modern industrial age, when they are reunited as old women. The setting moves from the Five Towns of the Staffordshire Potteries to exotic and cosmopolitan Paris.

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Enoch Arnold Bennett (always known as Arnold Bennett) was one of the most remarkable literary figures of his time, a product of the English Potteries that he made famous as the Five Towns. Yet he could hardly wait to escape his home town, and he did so by the sheer force of his ambition to succeed as an author. In his time he turned his hand to every kind of writing, but he will be remembered for such novels as The Old Wives’ Tale, the Clayhanger trilogy (Clayhanger, Hilda Lessways, and These Twain), and The Card. He also wrote such intriguing self-improvement books as Literary Taste, How To Live on 24 Hours a Day, The Human Machine, etc.