- Published: 7 August 2007
- ISBN: 9780141905433
- Imprint: Penguin eBooks
- Format: EBook
- Pages: 624
The Old Wives' Tale
- Published: 7 August 2007
- ISBN: 9780141905433
- Imprint: Penguin eBooks
- Format: EBook
- Pages: 624
Bennett's masterpiece... There are few more moving accounts of the effects of time, the passage of history and the slow encroachment of age than this remarkable, epic novel
Guardian
It's not just a wonderful story; it's also an expressionist masterpiece, almost surreal at times. It's also an amazing feat of empathy... It's also very intimate, and highly emotional. In fact, it's the perfect novel
Deborah Moggach, Independent
Arguably the finest novel written by an Englishman in the 20th century
Daily Telegraph
Arnold Bennett did write one indisputable masterpiece, The Old Wives' Tale, and that is where I recommend you start... Each time I'm in the midst of reading it, I think it the best novel ever written
Wendy Lesser, New York Times
For Bennett...compassion is not soggy. It involves understanding. The core of his writing is psychological truth, clinically observed, crisply reported
Sunday Times
Wonderfully touching
Daily Mail
The Old Wives Tale is the shining example of realism - the novel which...neither idealises nor caricatures
Roy Hattersley, Guardian
This novel...established Arnold Bennett's reputation as one of the great English novelists of the early 20th century
Washington Post