The Old Wives' Tale

Two Sisters from the Potteries

Arnold Bennett

• Publisher: Aeneas Press
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9785501878358
• Subtopic: Classics
• Index: Literature

Two sisters in a Staffordshire draper's shop: one stays her whole life, one runs off to Paris and lives through the siege. Bennett got the idea watching an old woman in a Paris restaurant and set out to write the finest novel in English; a good many readers think he managed it. This edition binds 57 plates of painting with the text, among them Munch, Pissarro and Béraud, their streets and markets running from 1821 to 1925.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• To W. W. K. Preface to This Edition
• Chapter I — The Square
• Chapter II — The Tooth
• Chapter III — A Battle
• Chapter IV — Elephant
• Chapter V — The Traveller
• Chapter VI — Escapade
• Chapter VII — A Defeat
• Chapter I — Revolution
• Chapter II — Christmas and the Future
• Chapter III — Cyril
• Chapter IV — Crime
• Chapter V — Another Crime
• Chapter VI — The Widow
• Chapter VII — Bricks and Mortar
• Chapter VIII — The Proudest Mother
• Chapter I — The Elopement
• Chapter II — Supper
• Chapter III — An Ambition Satisfied
• Chapter IV — A Crisis for Gerald
• Chapter V — Fever
• Chapter VI — The Siege
• Chapter VII — Success
• Chapter I — Frensham’s
• “My Darling Sophia,
• “Constance Povey.
• Chapter II — The Meeting
• Chapter III — Towards Hotel Life
• “Dear Mother,
• Chapter IV — End of Sophia
• Chapter V — End of Constance
• About the Author