Status
Available
Collection
Series
Genres
Publication
Wordsworth Editions Ltd (1998), 506 pages
Description
Classic Literature. Fiction. HTML: What would you do if your money-grubbing father decided to marry you off to someone you loathed, against your express wishes? That's precisely the dilemma facing virtuous Anna Tellwright in Arnold Bennett's juicy potboiler Anna of the Five Towns. Will Anna muster up the courage to defy her father's wishes and make her own way in the world?.
User reviews
LibraryThing member Luli81
I loved this novel because, as I heard somewhere, it raised the ordinary to extraordinary.
And that's exactly what makes this a thrilling novel. Nothing exceptional goes on, just what life for a young woman in an industrial village at the end of the XIX century might have been like. Unadorned and
Anna is an ordinary girl, who leads a simple existence with her tyrannical father and her younger half sister. She performs her duties without complaint, without any fuss or expectations. She is humble and austere and shy and not sure of what religion or love means, even though society imposes them on her.
When she turns 21, her oppressive father announces that she 's come into a great inheritance left to her from her deceased mother which makes her a wealthy and eligible woman. But that doesn't change anything, she is still depending on her miserly father.
Although Anna consents into everything imposed to her, she kind of starts making her own decisions to thread her future. While receiving constant attention from Henry Mynors, a young promising businessman, who wants to marry her, she can't help thinking of poor and humble Willie Prince, one of her tenants who is in deep debt. Her first own decision might change life as she had known it.
The end of the story left me breathless, so many emotions in such a few lines, without great passion, only with open sincerity, only with the pouring hearts of two people who are destined not to be together, and their cold acceptance to take life as it is. Hard, unfair and sad.
Great first experience of Bennett's writing. I'll read more by him definitely!
And that's exactly what makes this a thrilling novel. Nothing exceptional goes on, just what life for a young woman in an industrial village at the end of the XIX century might have been like. Unadorned and
Show More
real.Anna is an ordinary girl, who leads a simple existence with her tyrannical father and her younger half sister. She performs her duties without complaint, without any fuss or expectations. She is humble and austere and shy and not sure of what religion or love means, even though society imposes them on her.
When she turns 21, her oppressive father announces that she 's come into a great inheritance left to her from her deceased mother which makes her a wealthy and eligible woman. But that doesn't change anything, she is still depending on her miserly father.
Although Anna consents into everything imposed to her, she kind of starts making her own decisions to thread her future. While receiving constant attention from Henry Mynors, a young promising businessman, who wants to marry her, she can't help thinking of poor and humble Willie Prince, one of her tenants who is in deep debt. Her first own decision might change life as she had known it.
The end of the story left me breathless, so many emotions in such a few lines, without great passion, only with open sincerity, only with the pouring hearts of two people who are destined not to be together, and their cold acceptance to take life as it is. Hard, unfair and sad.
Great first experience of Bennett's writing. I'll read more by him definitely!
Show Less
LibraryThing member devenish
The books of Arnold Bennett seems curiously neglected these days. I've recently read 'The Card' which I love. In 'Anne Of The Five Towns' Bennett has produced a true tale of pathos. Anne is the eldest daughter of miser Tellwright. On her twenty-first birthday her father hands tells her that she is
Show More
a rich woman. However her father still firmly controls this legacy so that she cannot do as she wishes with her life. Her life is crossed by two men,one rich and self-assured and the other weak and helpless.She marries the one although she really loves the other. Show Less
LibraryThing member idiotgirl
Early 20th century. After the Trollope book, this is an interesting take on capitalism and class. Also the story of the miser--which is interesting in the context of "Our Mutual Friend" which I'm also reading. Bennett is so much more intense about the issues of class and socialism which come into
Show More
view in the late Victorian and early 20th century. Also mixes this in with an approach to methodism, religion, and also the potteries. This is a fine book and much of the twentieth rather than the 19th century. (Listened audiobook.) Show Less
LibraryThing member dandelionroots
I'm a sucker for stories about women's daily lives - from other: time periods, parts of the world, and/or facets of society. I'm kicking myself for not marking passages but Bennett has a way of describing a room, an object, a view, an interaction while actually telling you what he thinks about
Show More
humans and the world we inhabit and have largely created. For what it's worth, I believe she chose the right man (even though she didn't actually consider her other option) - Anna spared her sister further from her father, the miser (delightful title). #drunkreview Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1902
ISBN
1853262242 / 9781853262241