Hilda Lessways is impoverished but exotic young woman who marries Edwin Clayhanger, a wealthy successor of family business. The novel parallels Edwin Clayhanger's story from the point of view of his eventual wife, Hilda, by telling the story of her coming of age, her working experiences as a shorthand clerk and as a keeper of lodging houses in London and Brighton, her relationship with George Cannon, which ends in her disastrous bigamous marriage and pregnancy, and her reconciliation with Edwin Clayhanger.

Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) was an English writer. He is best known as a novelist, but he also worked in other fields such as the theatre, journalism, propaganda and films. One of Bennett's most popular non-fiction works was the self-help book How to Live on 24 Hours a Day. In 1903 he moved to Paris, where other artists from around the world had converged on Montmartre and Montparnasse. Bennett spent the next eight years writing novels and plays, influenced by the French writer Guy de Maupassant. His novel The Old Wives' Tale was hailed as a masterpiece.