The Old Wives' TaleBy: Arnold Bennett First published in 1908, The Old Wives' Tale affirms 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