[1] The plot centres on Anna Tellwright, daughter of a wealthy but miserly and dictatorial father, living in the Potteries area of Staffordshire, England.

Once an active preacher and teacher in the Methodist movement, her father has become a domestic tyrant and, through his miserly attitude to money, a fairly wealthy man.

On her 21st birthday, Tellwright unceremoniously hands over to Anna an unexpected inheritance from her grandmother: several parcels of shares along with rented residential and industrial property that he has carefully hoarded and re-invested over the years.

Anna is now a rich woman but she has no experience in business and financial dealings, save the management of the household expenses her father reluctantly hands her every week.

The Prices’ business is grossly in debt and they claim to be unable to pay the arrears, but manage to give Anna ten pounds.

In 1985 BBC2 broadcast a four-part serialisation of Anna of the Five Towns, starring Lynsey Beauchamp and Peter Davison and adapted by John Harvey.

In 2017, to mark Arnold Bennett's 150th birthday, a stage version of Anna by Deborah McAndrew was put on at the New Vic Theatre in Stoke.