Anna of the Five Towns

By Arnold Bennett

Book Overview

Anna of the Five Towns (1902) depicts the severe economic and moral pressures of life in the Staffordshire Potteries in the late nineteenth century. Against the vitality and harshness of the Five Towns, Bennett's narrative is a compelling delineation of his heroine's attempts to gain freedom and independence from her father and the repressive regime of Methodism. This is the first of Bennett's novels to mark out the province of the Five Towns where much of his later fiction is set.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0192829653
• ISBN13: 9780192829658
• Release Date: March 1995
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 4.5" x 7.3"

Customer Reviews

The crushing of Anna Tellwright

When Anna turns 18, she inherits a large sum of money (and property) from her dead mother. Her miserly and cruel father discourages her from spending a penny of it and even forces her to extract high rents from her tenants. As if this weren't enough trouble, she falls in love with Harry Mynors who is only interested in her money. When she realizes this, she has become so used to this kind of treatment that she decides to marry him anyway. Naturalistic and depressing, Bennett portrays his main characters well. Poor Anna--you really feel for her by the end of the book.