Money ruins everything. Or, at least, it ruins the people who don't know how to handle the weight of it. Arnold Bennett knew this back in 1902 when he published Anna of the Five Towns, and honestly, the book feels more relevant in our era of "quiet luxury" and soul-crushing debt than it probably did a century ago.
It’s a story about a woman named Anna Tellwright. She lives in the "Five Towns," a thinly veiled version of the Staffordshire Potteries in England. Her father, Ephraim, is a miser. Not the cartoonish, Ebenezer Scrooge kind of miser who eventually finds his heart, but a cold, methodical, deeply realistic miser who views every penny as a weapon of control.
When Anna turns twenty-one, she inherits a massive fortune. She’s suddenly one of the wealthiest women in the district. But she has no idea how to be rich. She’s been trained to count every lump of sugar and save every scrap of paper.
Bennett isn't just writing a romance here. He's writing about the psychological prison of inherited expectations.
The Grim Reality of the Potteries
The setting is basically a character itself. The Five Towns—Tunstall, Burslem, Hanley, Stoke, and Longton—are covered in soot. It’s a landscape of bottle-shaped ovens and industrial grime. If you've ever visited the actual Potteries in Staffordshire, you can still feel the ghost of this era.
Anna lives in this world of Methodist rigor and industrial grit. The religion isn't a comfort; it’s a social ledger. You’re judged by your attendance and your contributions. Bennett captures this suffocating atmosphere perfectly. He grew up there. He saw the way the smoke from the kilns settled into people's lungs and the way the strict morality of the chapel settled into their brains.
It's bleak.
But there’s a strange beauty in the precision of his prose. He describes a kitchen or a ledger book with the same intensity a modern writer might use for a high-speed car chase. He makes the mundane feel high-stakes because, for Anna, it is. One wrong move with a checkbook could destroy a family.
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Why Ephraim Tellwright is the Ultimate Villain
We talk a lot about "toxic" parents today. Ephraim is the blueprint. He doesn't hit Anna. He doesn't scream. He just... withholds. He uses her inheritance to play a game of financial chess where she's just a pawn.
There's a scene involving a forged bill that is genuinely stressful. Anna finds out that one of her tenants, a man named Willie Price, has committed a small fraud to keep his failing business afloat. Her father finds out too. The way Ephraim uses this information to squeeze the life out of the Price family is devastating.
He makes Anna the instrument of their destruction. He forces her to be the landlord who evicts them, even though she has a fortune sitting in the bank that could save them ten times over.
It’s about the lack of agency. You’d think having thousands of pounds (in 1900s money, that's millions now) would make her free. It makes her a prisoner to her father's "guidance."
The Henry Mynors Problem
Then there's the love interest. Henry Mynors is the "catch" of the town. He’s handsome, successful, and a pillar of the church. He’s exactly the kind of man a woman in Anna’s position is supposed to marry.
And she does love him. Sort of.
But Bennett does something brilliant here. He shows us that Henry is just a more "modern" version of her father. He’s efficient. He’s business-minded. He looks at Anna and sees a beautiful asset that comes with a very large dowry.
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You find yourself rooting for Willie Price instead. Willie is a "loser" by the standards of the Five Towns. He’s weak, he’s failing, and he’s sensitive. Anna feels a connection to him because they both know what it’s like to be crushed by the machinery of the world.
The tragedy of Anna of the Five Towns is that Anna is too "good" to rebel. She does what's expected. She marries the successful man. She plays the part.
The Ending That Still Divides Readers
A lot of people hate the ending of this book. I won't spoil the very last beat, but it’s heavy.
It isn't a "happily ever after" in the traditional sense. It’s a "this is how life actually goes" ending. Bennett belonged to the school of Naturalism. He believed that our environment and our heredity pretty much dictate our lives. Anna can’t just run away and start a new life. She’s a product of the Potteries.
She stays. She survives. But at what cost?
The book forces you to look at your own life. How much of what you do is because you actually want to do it, and how much is because you’re afraid of the "Ephraims" in your life?
Real-World Context: The Staffordshire Connection
If you want to understand the soul of this book, you have to look at the real history of the North Staffordshire Potteries. By the late 19th century, this area was the ceramic capital of the world. Names like Wedgwood and Spode were global brands.
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But the wealth didn't trickle down. The "Master Potters" lived in mansions while the workers died young from "potter’s rot" (silicosis). Bennett was one of the first major English novelists to treat these industrial lives with the same dignity and complexity that George Eliot or Thomas Hardy gave to rural farmers.
He didn't look down on them. He just observed.
Actionable Insights for Readers and Writers
If you’re picking up Anna of the Five Towns for the first time, or if you’re a writer trying to capture this kind of "human-quality" depth, here’s how to approach it:
- Watch the money. Pay attention to how often specific amounts of money are mentioned. In this book, money isn't an abstract concept; it’s a physical force that moves people around.
- Look for the "silences." Some of the most important moments in the novel happen when characters don't speak. Notice how Anna's internal world is vast, but her external world is tiny.
- Visit the Gladstone Pottery Museum. If you're ever in the UK, go to Longton. Seeing the actual kilns helps you realize the physical weight of the atmosphere Bennett was describing.
- Read the sequels. While this is a standalone story, Bennett’s other "Five Towns" books, like The Old Wives' Tale, expand this universe. It’s basically the 1900s version of a cinematic universe.
The book is a masterclass in tension. It reminds us that the most dramatic battles aren't fought on battlefields, but in small kitchens over a breakfast of cold toast and calculated silence.
To truly appreciate the legacy of Anna of the Five Towns, one must acknowledge its place in the transition from Victorian melodrama to modern realism. It doesn't need ghosts or grand coincidences to be haunting. The simple reality of a daughter trying to please an unpleasable father is enough.
Next time you feel the pressure to "perform" success or follow a path that feels safe but soul-deadening, think of Anna. Think of the checkbook in her pocket and the soot on the windows. It’s a cautionary tale that hasn't aged a day.
To get the most out of your reading, compare the social pressures Anna faces with the modern "hustle culture." The tools have changed—apps instead of ledgers—but the underlying anxiety of being "productive" enough to deserve your existence remains exactly the same. Reading Bennett is less like reading history and more like looking in a very old, very dusty mirror.