The Old Wives’ Tale
E159428
The Old Wives’ Tale is a 1908 novel by Arnold Bennett that traces the contrasting lives of two sisters from a Staffordshire draper’s shop through decades of social change in England and France.
All labels observed (5)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Old Wives’ Tale canonical | 5 |
| The Old Wives' Tale | 1 |
| The Old Wives' Tale (in Bennett’s major works chronology) | 1 |
| The Old Wives’ Tale (stage adaptations) | 1 |
| The Old Wives’ Tale: A Novel | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1393074 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Old Wives’ Tale Context triple: [William Heinemann, notableWorkPublished, The Old Wives’ Tale]
-
A.
The Baker's Wife
The Baker's Wife is a central, pragmatic yet yearning character in "Into the Woods," whose desire for a child drives much of the story’s moral complexity and emotional depth.
-
B.
The Constant Maid
The Constant Maid is a Caroline-era stage comedy by English playwright James Shirley, known for its witty dialogue and exploration of love and social manners.
-
C.
The Provoked Wife
The Provoked Wife is a late 17th-century Restoration comedy play by John Vanbrugh, known for its sharp wit and exploration of marriage and female agency.
-
D.
The Maid's Revenge
The Maid's Revenge is a Caroline-era tragic play by English dramatist James Shirley, known for its themes of love, honor, and revenge within a Spanish courtly setting.
-
E.
The Eternal Husband
The Eternal Husband is a psychological novella by Fyodor Dostoevsky that explores guilt, jealousy, and obsession through the tense relationship between a widower and his late wife's former lover.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Old Wives’ Tale Target entity description: The Old Wives’ Tale is a 1908 novel by Arnold Bennett that traces the contrasting lives of two sisters from a Staffordshire draper’s shop through decades of social change in England and France.
-
A.
The Baker's Wife
The Baker's Wife is a central, pragmatic yet yearning character in "Into the Woods," whose desire for a child drives much of the story’s moral complexity and emotional depth.
-
B.
The Constant Maid
The Constant Maid is a Caroline-era stage comedy by English playwright James Shirley, known for its witty dialogue and exploration of love and social manners.
-
C.
The Provoked Wife
The Provoked Wife is a late 17th-century Restoration comedy play by John Vanbrugh, known for its sharp wit and exploration of marriage and female agency.
-
D.
The Maid's Revenge
The Maid's Revenge is a Caroline-era tragic play by English dramatist James Shirley, known for its themes of love, honor, and revenge within a Spanish courtly setting.
-
E.
The Eternal Husband
The Eternal Husband is a psychological novella by Fyodor Dostoevsky that explores guilt, jealousy, and obsession through the tense relationship between a widower and his late wife's former lover.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (45)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf | novel ⓘ |
| author | Arnold Bennett ⓘ |
| centralTheme |
aging
ⓘ
family life ⓘ marriage ⓘ provincial versus cosmopolitan life ⓘ social change ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | United Kingdom ⓘ |
| criticalReception |
highly praised by contemporaries
ⓘ
regarded as one of Arnold Bennett’s masterpieces ⓘ |
| depicts | a Staffordshire draper’s shop ⓘ |
| firstEditionFormat | print ⓘ |
| genre |
domestic fiction
ⓘ
realist novel ⓘ |
| hasAdaptation |
The Old Wives’ Tale
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
The Old Wives’ Tale (stage adaptations)
|
| hasAlternateTitle |
The Old Wives’ Tale
ⓘ
surface form:
The Old Wives’ Tale: A Novel
|
| hasNarrativeStyle | third-person omniscient ⓘ |
| hasPageCountApprox | 800 ⓘ |
| hasSubject |
English provincial towns
ⓘ
Franco-Prussian War ⓘ class and social mobility ⓘ commerce and small business ⓘ women’s lives ⓘ |
| includedIn | 20th-century English literature canon ⓘ |
| influenced | later 20th-century English realist fiction ⓘ |
| literaryMovement | realism ⓘ |
| literaryPeriod | Edwardian literature ⓘ |
| mainCharacter |
Constance Baines
ⓘ
Gerald Scales ⓘ Samuel Povey ⓘ Sophia Baines ⓘ |
| narrativeScope | spansSeveralDecades ⓘ |
| notableFor |
detailed depiction of provincial English life
ⓘ
psychological realism ⓘ |
| originalLanguage | English ⓘ |
| partOf | Arnold Bennett’s Five Towns cycle ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1908 ⓘ |
| publisher | Chatto & Windus ⓘ |
| settingLocation |
Bursley
ⓘ
France ⓘ Paris ⓘ Staffordshire ⓘ |
| structure | dividedIntoFourBooks ⓘ |
| timePeriodDepicted |
19th century
ⓘ
early 20th century ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Old Wives’ Tale Description of subject: The Old Wives’ Tale is a 1908 novel by Arnold Bennett that traces the contrasting lives of two sisters from a Staffordshire draper’s shop through decades of social change in England and France.
Referenced by (9)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
The Old Wives' Tale
this entity surface form:
The Old Wives’ Tale (stage adaptations)
this entity surface form:
The Old Wives’ Tale: A Novel
this entity surface form:
The Old Wives' Tale (in Bennett’s major works chronology)
subject surface form:
Arnold Bennett