Scathingly reviewed by some at the time of its publication in 1903 because of its subject matter, Bennett’s third novel, Leonora , is the love story of a middle-aged woman. In response to his critics, Bennett later recorded in his preface to The Old Wives Tale, that he intended the book to be a protest against the “absurd youthfulness, the unfading youthfulness of the average heroine.”
关于作者
Arnold Bennett (1867–1931) was a British writer whose prolific output included numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, literary criticism as well as theatre journalism, an opera, and a screenplay. English novelist Margaret Drabble says of him, “Bennett’s books I think are very fine indeed, on the highest level, deeply moving… I feel they have been underrated.”