The cover page is adapted from Girls Binding Garlands, a painting completed in 1886 by Albert Edelfelt. The cover and title pages feature the League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by The League of Moveable Type. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Edelfeltwww.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/
The Old Wives’ Tale
章节(29)
- Dedication 0:00
- Preface 0:05
- Book I: Mrs. Baines: I: The Square 11:16
- II: The Tooth 1:04:40
- III: A Battle 1:30:53
- IV: Elephant 2:52:53
- V: The Traveller 3:36:40
- VI: Escapade 4:24:02
- VII: A Defeat 5:08:11
- Book II: Constance: I: Revolution 5:43:49
- II: Christmas and the Future 6:29:31
- III: Cyril 7:09:52
- IV: Crime 8:00:52
- V: Another Crime 8:45:42
- VI: The Widow 10:09:00
- VII: Bricks and Mortar 10:38:49
- VIII: The Proudest Mother 11:10:47
- Book III: Sophia: I: The Elopement 11:37:46
- II: Supper 12:08:56
- III: An Ambition Satisfied 12:47:25
- IV: A Crisis for Gerald 13:34:59
- V: Fever 14:23:58
- VI: The Siege 15:53:51
- VII: Success 17:00:25
- Book IV: What Life Is: I: Frensham’s 17:47:50
- II: The Meeting 19:08:03
- III: Towards Hotel Life 20:12:18
- IV: End of Sophia 21:53:16
- V: End of Constance 23:17:41
The Old Wives’ Tale, considered to be one of Bennett’s finest works, begins in the 1860s, in the industrial “Five Towns” of the English Midlands, where he set many of his partially autobiographical stories.
The novel follows the prosperous Baines family, who live above the successful clothing shop they own in the town of Bursley (based on Burslem, in Staffordshire). Even when the two Baines daughters were still young, their characters are already formed. Sophia has “youth, beauty, and rank in her favour,” while Constance is “foolishly good-natured,” with benevolence that is “eternally rising up and overpowering her reason.”
Their paths diverge quickly. While still in her teens, the headstrong Sophia elopes with a traveling salesman, leaving England’s provinces for Paris. Constance, who later marries the head employee at the store, hardly ever leaves their town—or even the square where their shop is located. As the novelist J. B. Priestley observed, this gently ironic and sprawling novel sets its “two suffering heroines” against “three conquering heroes, Time, Mutability, and Death.”