24 h 39 minAudiobook13 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 24 h 39 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
Two sisters leave the same childhood behind, but neither can escape the quiet force of time.
Above a draper's shop in smoky Bursley, Constance and Sophia Baines grow up under their firm, thrifty mother's eye. Constance is gentle and dutiful; Sophia is proud, restless and hungry for a wider world. In Arnold Bennett's The Old Wives' Tale, their different temperaments lead them away from a shared home toward very different lives.
Constance's world gathers around family, the shop and its careful assistant, Samuel Povey. Sophia's path takes her to Paris, far from the pottery towns of Staffordshire. Through marriages, money and quarrels, Bennett gives space to the long middle years. What is at stake is the shape of a whole life, formed slowly through work, love and daily choices.
What you’ll discover
- Two paths from home Follow sisters whose opposing desires make staying and leaving equally absorbing.
- A town drawn close Step into Bursley's busy square, where shop life and family life meet.
- A wider world beckons Travel with Sophia to Paris, where independence carries her far from familiar surroundings.
- The years between milestones Discover how work, money and ordinary quarrels give a life its texture.
- Time made deeply felt Feel slow changes in faces and hearts through Bennett's patient, closely observed storytelling.
Who will love it
For readers who love novels about family, work and the passing of the years, and who enjoy a richly drawn English town. The contrasting lives of two sisters offer choices, love, mistakes and courage.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A Draper's Shop Shapes Two Girls
- Two Sisters With Opposite Temperaments
- Mr Povey Guards the Shop
- Sophia Chooses Passion Over Home
- Constance Stays and Builds a Quiet Life
- Sophia Rebuilds Herself in Paris
- Time Wears Down Both Lives
- What the Novel Is Really About
- How Bennett Builds His Slow Realism
Who’s who
- Constance BainesThe gentle, dutiful elder sister, who stays in Bursley, loves her home and builds her life around family and the shop.
- Sophia BainesThe proud, restless younger sister, who longs for independence and a wider world and is willing to risk a great deal for it.
- Mrs BainesThe sisters' firm, thrifty mother, who runs the family draper's shop and the household and cares deeply about respectability.
- Samuel PoveyThe fussy, loyal senior shop assistant, anxious about his dignity, honest and hardworking, and devoted to the shop and the family.
- Gerald ScalesA charming commercial traveller whose worldly manner and good looks draw the young Sophia away from her home.
- Cyril PoveyConstance's clever son, whose talents and ambitions point beyond the narrow life of Bursley.
Formats and delivery
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- Large-print eBook
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- Audiobook
- 24 h 39 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 13 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Read and hear Cuento de viejas in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Cuento de viejas
by Arnold Bennett · 1908
Two sisters begin life in a Bursley draper's shop, then choose separate paths through family, passion and war.
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In short
The Old Wives' Tale is a novel by Arnold Bennett, published in 1908. Bennett grew up in the Staffordshire Potteries, and he set the book in the Five Towns, the cluster of pottery towns he knew from boyhood.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A Draper's Shop Shapes Two Girls
The novel opens in Bursley, one of the five pottery towns of Staffordshire. The Baines family lives above a draper's shop on St Luke's Square, the busy centre of the town. Mr Baines, the father, is an invalid who rarely leaves his room. The shop is run by Mrs Baines with a small staff of assistants. Bennett fills the opening pages with counters, bolts of cloth and the careful habits of a business that has served the town for years.
Bursley is not a pretty place. Its skies are dark with the smoke of the potbanks, the works where china and earthenware are fired. Its people are plain, hardworking and proud of being so. Bennett writes about them with affection and a sharp eye, and he never mocks them. He treats their small daily concerns as worth the same attention as any great event.
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What is The Old Wives' Tale about?
It follows two sisters, Constance and Sophia Baines, from their youth in a draper's shop in the English pottery town of Bursley to old age. One stays at home and the other lives in Paris.
Where is Bursley and what are the Five Towns?
Bursley is a fictional version of Burslem, one of the six real pottery towns of Staffordshire. Bennett called them the Five Towns, and he used them as the setting for many of his novels.
When was The Old Wives' Tale written?
Arnold Bennett published it in 1908. The story begins in the 1860s and runs for decades. It is fiction, but its details of shops, towns and the siege of Paris draw on real history.
The author
Arnold Bennett
1867–1931 · English novelist
Arnold Bennett (1867–1931) was an English novelist and journalist born in Hanley, Staffordshire. He lived in London and France before returning to England. He wrote The Grand Babylon Hôtel (1902), The Old Wives’ Tale (1908), and How to Live on 24 Hours a Day (1910). He died in London.
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