Anna of the Five Towns

a novel by Arnold Bennett, published in 1902; in it he names and recreates the region portrayed in his best work. It is, in his own words, ‘a study in parental tyranny’ in its description of the struggles of young Anna Tellwright to resist her rich, miserly father, Ephraim. She boldly burns a bill of exchange to prevent the prosecution of defaulting tenant Willy Price, son of embezzler and suicide Titus Price, but the force of place and custom is too strong for her, and in the end she marries the respectable Henry Mynors. The novel's strength lies not in plot but in the detailed description of Sunday school meetings, financial obsessions, rent collecting, and provincial houses and furniture; and in its one passage of escape, when Anna takes a holiday on the Isle of Man.