History and the Everyday in Arnold Bennett's The Old Wives' Tale

Generalizations that cast Arnold Bennett as a writer concerned with everyday life have meant the details, nuances, and complexities of his works are overlooked. This article examines one particular facet of the everyday in Bennett's work—his attention to unassuming, day-to-day life over incidents of nominal historical importance in The Old Wives' Tale; it also draws upon similar preoccupations in Clayhanger and his nonfiction. Bennett said that the "secret life of cities is a matter for endless brooding" and his characters are surrounded by myriad, unknown daily existences, an illimitable totality that precludes a singular, historical account. The argument here does not offer a reading of Bennett's sense of historical progress but argues that The Old Wives' Tale implicates a critical reassessment of the interplay of history and the everyday. [129 words]